Preview

Pros And Cons Of Human Experimentation: Under Control

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
520 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Pros And Cons Of Human Experimentation: Under Control
Human Experimentation: Under Control
According to Merriam-Webster, experimentation is defined as, “a procedure or operation carried out to resolve an uncertainty.” When we discuss human research and experimentation, various emotions and opinions tend to surface. Throughout history, human experiments proved to manifest as both successful outcomes as well as horrendous acts; one’s position on the matter may vary significantly and becomes one of personal choice. For me, human experimentation is acceptable when certain stipulations and safeguards are in place. Following research tragedies such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Trial, many members of society have lost trust and respect for the scientific community regarding human experimentation (Steinbock, London, & Arras, 2012). Research conducted utilizing human experimentation offers many benefits under the appropriate circumstances; I believe this includes only utilizing subjects over the age of eighteen years old for all invasive studies as well as obtaining informed consent.
Some of the benefits include giving people an opportunity to help others. A feeling of contributing to a great cause can be experienced when one is potentially assisting with future advances. Second, these trials often
…show more content…
The justice theory maintains the general concept that a person is important simply because they are human; factors such as age, socioeconomic status, gender, race, etc. should have no bearing on one’s advantage (Steinbock et al., 2012). This theory is relevant in numerous ways, including the selection of subjects. For example, mentally disabled individuals could not be targeted and so forth. Unlike the utilitarian principle, which looks at the “greater good” and what outcome will help the most people - despite the ramifications, the justice theory, is based on liberty and equality (Steinbock et al.,

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Medical research studies disease in patients and how they are affected by these illnesses. However, consent is always required whether or not treatment is administered. Patients should always be kept informed of the changes in their condition and the treatment they are receiving. Sadly, this was not the case for the Tuskegee study on Syphilis in African American.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was started in the early 1930’s and continued on for over 40 years causing a great deal of physical and emotional health problems to thousands of black men and their families in Macon County, Georgia. Beneficence, according to The Belmont Report states, “Research involving human subjects should do no intentional harm, while maximizing possible benefits and minimizing possible harms, both to the individuals involved and to society at large” (National Institute of Health, 1979).…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Tuskegee Syphilis Study of untreated syphilis was one of the most horrible scandals in American medicine in the 20th century. For a period of forty years, doctors and public officials watched 400 men in Alabama die in a "scientific" experiment based on unethical methods that could produce no new information about syphilis. The subjects of the study were never told they were participating in an "experiment." Treatment that could have cured them was deliberately withheld, and many of the men were prevented from seeing physicians who could have helped them. As a result, many people died painful deaths, others became permanently blind or insane, and the children of several were born with congenital syphilis.…

    • 1079 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tuskegee Study Inhumane

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Justice also protects researchers from targeting a specific group for potentially riskier treatments. (2) The Tuskegee study violated the principle of fair subject selection by intentionally selecting poor, illiterate black males to encounter the dangerous and life-threatening effects of untreated syphilis. Furthermore, these black men were deemed as inferior to white people and received unequal treatment due to racist experimentation performed. Researchers lured these uneducated men by manipulating and bribing them with…

    • 436 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    When we think of medical research and testing, we know that it is a necessary part of the advancement of medicine. When research involves human subjects, we assume that all subjects are being treated morally, and that the researchers will be conducting the studies with respect to the subject’s natural rights as a human being. History shows us that medical studies have not always been conducted this way. The Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital, The Tuskegee Syphilis experiments, and the Hepatitis studies at the Willowbrook State School, are a few examples of highly unethical research studies that have previously been conducted. Willowbrook State School may be one of the hardest to consider ethically, because it involved studying children.…

    • 1414 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

    • 2578 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Experimentations on humans have always been met with some degree of suspicion in America. Yet, history recalls several incidents which implicated well –established agencies that have been involved. One such embarrassing incident took place at Tuskegee. This is the story of “Miss Evers Boys.” It has come to symbolize racism in medicine, ethical misconduct in human research, paternalism by physicians and government abuse of vulnerable people.…

    • 2578 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tuskegee Research Problem

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Although research is risky, it is needed in order to advance as a society to prevent the persistence of the same social problems. The Tuskegee research study began in 1932 as a research on the lack of treatment of Syphilis in African-American males. The U.S. Government offered the leading doctors at Tuskegee to conduct research on these males in order to compare it to the same study conducted in Oslo, Norway, which was conducted primarily on Caucasian males. In return, the government promised to provide budget for their own Syphilis treatment research. In a way, the government exploited the black doctor that was leading the research by explaining to him that the views of society would change if a black doctor produced successful data or research. By appealing to the doctor emotionally, they lured him into their trap of working for the government, therefore, the doctor took a step into the unknown and had no promised outcome. The exploitation of the research subjects without consent by the doctors take place due to the vulnerability of the the subject, such as having no education or income, making it their best interest to follow what an educated doctor might advise. The doctors lured the subjects into their trap by promising…

    • 896 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This essay discusses the medical experiments which were conducted by the United States Public Health Service between 1932 and 1972 in Tuskegee Alabama. 399 African -American adult male subjects were examined and diagnosed as having late stage syphilis. The main goal of the study was to periodically examine these men to determine how their bodies were affected by the syphilis disease. The thesis of this essay is that based on moral and ethical grounds, the Tuskegee experiments were indefensible.…

    • 781 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tuskegee Syphilis Study

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages

    As reported by the New York Times on July 26, 1972, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was revealed as “the longest nontheraputic experiment on human beings in medical history”…

    • 856 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For instance, because the experimental subjects were never given treatment, “scores of people died painful deaths, and others became permanently blind or insane, and the children of several were born with congenital Syphilis” (Brandt 1). Many researchers explained opinions contradictory to the conducting scientists’ opinions of the study regarding human ethics, such as Dr. J. E. Moore who wrote, “treatment markedly diminishes the risk from Syphilis” (Brandt 5). Since the patients were kept untreated by the USPHS, “as the Oslo Study had shown, untreated Syphilis led to to cardiovascular disease, insanity, and premature death”(Brandt 5). Though the results of experimentation may be reliable, the unjust, unrighteous, and inconsiderate acts performed by the conductors of the Tuskegee Study and the many researchers’ opinions regarding human ethics that contradicted the acts of the Tuskegee study caused it to have a disrespected reputation for the long…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thesis The experiment proposed by the U.S. Public Health service to study untreated syphilis in poor African American men in the community of Macon County, Alabama, a disease affecting most of its inhabitants. The ethical aspects of clinical research carried out in humans have differentiating characteristics, from the ethical conditions of the rest of scientific research. The protection of human life and health are the most relevant values and require greater protection, in which experiments have been conducted that have caused pain and unnecessary suffering for many humans. The Tuskegee experiment raises a reflection on the relationship between science, ethics and society.…

    • 671 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Tuskegee Study

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Tuskegee Study was an infamous clinical study done on African American males in the testing of untreated syphilis. The intent of the study was to record the natural history of syphilis within the Black population. The study included 600 participants who were mostly poor men and illiterate sharecroppers from the county. This study is considered to be a historical and cultural event that has impacted the world of Public Health in which it has helped bring ethical justice to individuals who are being misused and mistreated. “The advisory panel concluded that the Tuskegee Study was "ethically unjustified"--the knowledge gained was sparse when compared with the risks the study posed for its subjects” (CDC). The lessons that can be drawn from this event are the importance of having an ethical demeanor and having a procedure when conducting a study. This public health event led to the significance of informing the public and its participants on studies that are being done. This event also made a cultural impact due to the fact that the study focused on poor, African American populations. The participants were taken advantage of by being offered free meals, exams, and free burial insurance in exchange of using them for the Syphilis experiment. This study led to raise the ethical standards of any experiment. Studies are now…

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the past, before the government regulated experimentation on humans and prior to patients’ having to give consent to be involved in studies that could potentially harm them, many doctors and researchers took advantage of these people. The poorest and most illiterate of populations were recruited for experimental medical studies that were invasive, harmful and could result in death. These were the people they believed would not object and would not realize that what was being done to them was wrong.…

    • 1921 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Tuskegee Experiment

    • 2908 Words
    • 9 Pages

    The original study of the Tuskegee research was a disreputable medical experiment carried out in the United States between 1932 and 1972, in which almost 400 black Americans with syphilis were offered no medical treatment, allowing researchers to see the course of the disease. The events of the Tuskegee research triggered extensive values of legislation, including the National Research Act, and the experiment attracted a great deal of public attention. Many people regard the Tuskegee Experiment as an extremely shameful event in American history, and several organizations including the Centers for Disease Control have extensive archives on the experiment which are available to interested members of the public who want to learn more about it.…

    • 2908 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Human Experimentation has existed for a millennia. Typically the poor were subject to experimentation by the ruling class. As far as we know it’s not prevalent now, as it was just 60 years ago. Poor African-Americans were discriminated against and experimented purely based off race by the white ruling class of the 1950’s-1970. Africans-Americans were seen as unintelligent beings that lacked human properties such as being able to feel pain.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays