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The Tuskegee Study

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The Tuskegee Study
Lillian Acevedo
SOC 300
Prof. Dana Fenton
March 4, 2014
Ethics Reflection Assignment
Part A. The CITI Ethics Training spoke of both: Laud Humphreys, Tearoom Trade and the infamous Tuskegee Study. The Video, The Human Behavior Experiments, reported on the Milgram study on obedience and the Zimbardo Prison Experiment. Using one of these four studies as an example, explain how the study violated (or not) each of the three basic principles of research ethics: beneficence, justice and respect for persons, using materials from your CITI training, the ASA Code of Ethics and the Belmont Report. Before you use each concept, find the definition of the concept and quote and cite the definition adding clarification and/or explanation in your own words if needed. If you care to learn more about these studies, there is quite a bit of high level information on the web. If you use any of it, you must cite it properly. (2-3 pages) In this assignment I am going to explain how the Tuskegee Study violated each of the three basic principles of research: beneficence, justice and respect for persons. The Tuskegee Study was a research project conducted in Macon County, Alabama between 1930 and 1972 to discover whether blacks react to syphilis in the same way as whites. This study was also to determine how long a human being can live with untreated syphilis. About 400 black men were infected with the virus that causes syphilis and about 200 were part of the control group. By the end of 1931 there wasn’t enough money to continue the treatment. The participants for this experiment were poor and illiterate. This made it easier for doctors to exploit and deceive them. Many of these men were told that they were being treated for “bad blood”. They were never told they had syphilis. Others believed that they were treated for rheumatism or bad stomachs. They stopped treating these men and then they were told that they were treated. They prevented them from getting treatment


References: Robinson, Lisa. 2014. “History and Ethical Principles-SBE”. Ethical Principles of the Belmont Report 2-9. Rusert, Britt. 2009. “ The Tuskegee Experiments and the new South Plantation”. The Tuskegee Experiment(s) Sharma, Alankaar. 2009. “Diseased Race, Racialized Disease: The Story of the Negro Project of Social Hygiene Association Against the Backdrop of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment”. with Human Subjects-SBE, The Regulations-SBE, and Assessing Risk-SBE. https://www.citiprogram.org/members/index.cfm?pageID=125&intStageID=126700) The Belmont Report. 1979. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Retrieved April 18, 1979 (http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/humansubjects/guidance/belmont.html). The Deadly Deception. 1993. Rare Documentary-You Tube. Retrieved august 5, 2012 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCYdl2b_9Vs).
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