Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

A number of ethical issues the crop up when human research subjects are used need to be
understood better. The issue of informed consent arose in Tuskegee’s syphilis experiment
that related to informing potential research participants on all element s of the research that
have the capacity to change their decision on taking part in the study. There is also a
likelihood that an individual might feel pressured to take part into a research and would
probably not know that they are agreeing to. The researches took advantage of a bad
socioeconomic situation whereby the participants who took part in this study had received
low care levels. Nurses and doctors were the contacts and were thought to be authoritative
figures. The participants were lured in with the promise of free medical care and most of
them had never visited a doctor in their lifes. They were also informed that they were being
treated of bad blood which was a common term in the area that referred to many diseases.
The men were not given medicine but only placebos and monitored to their death. The idea of
informed consent when information on what one is taking part in is not disclosed to the
participant eliminates the idea of informed since one can only consent to what they
understand.