Tuskegee Experiment

Tuskegee Experiment

Introduction

The study of untreated syphilis in the male population of black Tuskegee or simply study on syphilis in Tuskegee was a clinical trial carried out and followed by the United States Public Health Service in the city of Tuskegee, Alabama, between 1932 and 1972, the order to verify the effects of the natural progression of the disease on a body infected untreated. For the experiments, 399 unwitting tenants of the African Americans suffering from syphilis were recruited, which were followed by the authorities being involved to understand the evolution of the disease and its real effects in the hope of justifying treatment programs on the black population (Katz, Kegeles, et al, 2006). Although in 1940, the effectiveness of penicillin as a cure of the disease was proven, doctors continued the program of study regardless of the fact that would lead to a disaster in both the health plan and in the capital. In 1947, the medicine was widely used as a universal cure for syphilis, but since the acceptance of it as a cure would have caused the closure of the Tuskegee study, scholars continued on their way to other blacks preventing the city to undergo the treatment of penicillin. Followed by several supervisors, the study of Tuskegee continued its activities until 1972, the official date of termination of the experiments due to a leak that led to the end of the project; until then it was hidden from national prominence (Katz, Kegeles, et al, 2006). The legacy of the research program was death, followed worsening of syphilis, many men and transmission of the disease through sexual intercourse with their wives, once pregnant, and transmitted a congenital syphilis to their unborn children.

Referred to as being the most ill-famed research related to biomedical study in the. History of the United States of America, the events that followed led to the creation in 1979 of the Report of Belmont, alongwith the development of the OHRP (Office for Human Research Protections) (Katz, Kegeles, et al, 2006). This also led to the adoption of a federal regulation requesting an institution for the purpose of reviewing the protection of human participants participating in experiments on the bodies of the human. The handling of this responsibility was assigned following the OHRP, putting itself as the inner section of the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States. In 1994, the U.S. President, Bill Clinton, apologized for the incident to the whole nation.

Discussion

The Tuskegee study of syphilis (1932 - 1972) was a clinical study conducted in Tuskegee, Alabama by American doctors to study the evolution of syphilis, in conditions when the disease was not treated. Participants in this study were poor sharecroppers from the African-American race, who were denied the treatment of this disease, available since 1943 with the use of penicillin. It was only after thirty years from the day the treatment for the disease was discovered with penicillin that the health institution, allowed to continue this study till then, was terminated after ...