LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUE DEALING WITH THE TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT Research Paper

LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUE DEALING WITH THE TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS EXPERIMENT - Research Paper Example This research paper will examine the legal and ethical issues in the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. In the 1920s, the United States medical service and Public Health Service argued that black and white people differed on how they responded to diseases. Thus, the PHS saw the need to  study  the response of syphilis on blacks and compare it to  study  done in Norway on syphilis in whites. In 1932, both communities started the Tuskegee  experiment  in order to determine the  natural  cause  of untreated latent syphilis. This took place in Tuskegee, Macon County, in Alabama in which about 400 African American men participated. All the men involved in the study had syphilis and  were matched  against 200 uninfected African American men who served as a control group, and showed different clinical  manifestation  of syphilis because of their race. The main aim of the study was to examine the natural history of syphilis since about ninety nine percent of all the participants had not received any previous treatment; thus, it was not possible to  duplicate  this  study  type. According to Jones (1993), men involved in the experiment  were made  to believe that they were patients involved in a medical project and that they  were being treated  for their  Ã¢â‚¬Ëœbad  blood’, that is, syphilis or anemia. Moreover, they  were enticed  with  several  offers of  outstanding  free treatments, as well as free medical examinations during the research process. Heintzelman (1996) argues that the researchers probably took advantage of the poor, rural setting of the Tuskegee community, which had high rates of illiteracy and poor socioeconomic status. Nevertheless, Jones (1993), believes that Macon county  was chosen  as the most  suitable  area  for the study due to its high number of people i nfected with syphilis. The coordinator of the