The Tuskegee Case Study

Ethics has changed over the years as perspectives and ideals have developed. Professionals alike now question what was once seen as entirely ethical. Today speech-language pathologists have a written code of ethical standards to adhere by; to ensure the most ethical practices as seen by today’s standards. This code has changed several times throughout history due to the unethical procedures of others research. This code is used by both researchers and clinicians to facilitate the safety of all those involved. Without adhering to the code, researchers and clinicians are facilitating risky and ineffective practices. Because the codes of ethics are always changing, one must assess his or her own ethical standards, and not only the ethical codes.

This experiment began in the 1920’s and consisted of injecting, what would be healthy black men in Alabama, with syphilis to test the effects of untreated syphilis. This experiment breaks four separate ethical guidelines at first glance. The first is mandatory informed consent, the second being minimizing the risk of all participants, the third eludes to the avoidance of discrimination due to characteristics such as race, gender, age and the fourth refers to the negative impact on coercion (ASHA, 2014, p.1). The experimenters in this study did not tell the men what they would be injected with knowing that there would be a large amount of risks for all participants involved. In addition, the men were coerced into the experiment. The experimenters would pay for the participants’ burial and all health costs for them and their family for as long as the participant lived. In areas of Alabama this is an extremely strong incentive to join a study considering the majority of people barley had money for food much less for health and burial costs (Gray, 1998). Lastly the experimenter used poor black men only because of the population’s race and socioeconomic status. The Tuskegee experiments showed blatant disregard for human life, as even when a cure was found, there was no attempt to treat the men involved (Gray, 1998). This experiment was backed throughout the research community, and no one interjected until it was too late. Stakeholders and researchers pulled funding and support from this experiment, at the end, however this was not until the 1960’s. Many people were outraged and found the study extremely unethical, after the 40th year the study had continued for. At that time, there were no guidelines regarding informed consent such as the revised ASHA Code of Ethics seen today. However, it was apparent based on other researchers and