Human Subjects - Research Paper Example

Human s Research: The Tuskegee Study The Tuskegee Study of 1932 will be the focus of this discussion. This experiment can be ified as a public health research venture because the purpose of the experiment was to collect data concerning the public health issue of syphilis and other common maladies (Hagen, 2005). The original venture was intended to be six to twelve months in length and transformed into a venture designed to mimic a similar Norwegian study on syphilitic white males that had been untreated for long periods of time prior to the study and through no fault of the researchers (Hagen, 2005; Walker, 2009).

However, through the course of this forty year study, no new drugs were tested nor was the efficacy of any existing treatments analyzed, although the effects of the disease was studied on a pool of 600 African-American men of which 399 had syphilis and 201 did not (Walker, 2009; Hagen, 2005). Since the nature of the illness can become fatal and be transmitted to a fetus in the womb, I think this experiment should have followed the most stringent protocols of public ethical conduct for conducting human subject research.

Through the course of this experiment, the participants were deliberately misinformed and, when effective treatment for syphilis became available, they were deliberately denied treatment, causing a mistrust of the public health system that effects the physician’s ability to successfully offer healthcare to African-American’s today (Hagen, 2005). While a study such of this generates an enormous amount of informative data about the actual effects of the disease on the human body, the trust needed to effectively treat future patients is lost and, decades after the study, this trust still remains elusive for many African-American’s.

References Hagen, K.S. (2005). Bad blood: The Tuskegee syphilis study and legacy recruitment for experimental AIDS vaccines. New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education, 105, pp.31-41. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=105&sid=a37a394d-6839-478e-a4e0-55e34eede68d%40sessionmgr112Walker, C.A. (2009). Lest we forget: The Tuskegee Experiment. Journal of Theory Construction & Testing, 13(1), pp.5-6. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?

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