The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Paper Summary:

This essay was designed to explore the moral and ethical implications of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The essay opens with the breaking of the story by the Associated press, and then follows it to its conclusion in 1975. The paper debates the moral and ethical nature with the scientific benefits of the study. Susan M. Reverby's book titled "Tuskegee's Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study", is cited many times throughout the essay. While this essay is important for the historical information provided, it also puts the study in it's time, exploring the effects it had on the Civil Rights movement and the future relationship of African Americans with medical society.

From the Paper:

"The Associated Press brought to light the history and existence of a forty year old study of syphilis in Tuskegee, Alabama. Four hundred men with syphilis and two hundred men without, generally poor and uneducated, all of them African American, had been receiving regular physical examinations, but received no treatment for their syphilis. The story was scandalous and controversial. Close on the heels of the Civil Rights movement and just at the height of the Vietnam War, the expose of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study shocked the public and ignited waves of suspicion that would hover over Public Health Services and the Federal government like a dense, dark cloud. Central to the outrage was the fact that the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was not being widely covered in media forums. The administrators of the study were countless, the victims were many, and those who had read articles on the study numbered in the thousands."

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