Racism in the Tuskegee Experiment Essay

The Tuskegee experiment, begun in 1932 by the United States Public Health Service in Macon County, aluminium, utilize 400 dispirited men who suffered from advanced stages of syphilis. This study was non a means of finding a cure the patients offered no preventative measures to broaden or better life. Although the history and nature of syphilis was well understood, sealed scientists believed that more research could certainly be done.In terms of whom to study, the doctors evolution the format discovered a ready-made situation (Jones 94). Macon County Alabama was impoverished, like much of the country in 1932. The selection process began during the depression, a time of separation and intolerance. In the rural S discloseh, where we find Tuskegee, the men elect were non seen, at the time, as equal in any sensation of the word.Jones refers to prominent doctors of the region who, in the late 1800s, scientifically defined diseases that were peculiar(a) to the race. One such disea se, Cachexia Africana, caused the subject to eat dirt. The reality did not question such obviously ridiculous claims at the time. In fact, the public heralded these doctors and requested a manual for treating blacks in order to ease slave-owners and the like money in paying for doctors (17). tending(p) the distaste for the ethnicity of the subjects, could their ethnicity order one over been a factor in the selection process?At the time, the health check profession had already made some false assumptions about the African American race in general. Jones reiterated the white-held theory that black men had larger penises and little constraints when it came to sexual intercourse (23). It was also believed that they were harder to treat for syphilis because African Americans were stupid.In examining this mindset, it becomes clear why the organization erringly felt it should go to the poorer black communities in rural Alabama conduct a syphilis study. Believed to be an immoral sex- centered culture placed at the level of animals, the government would put them in league with mice and rats. As disgusting as the premise is, the doctors requisite lab animals and set out to find them.If this were true how could the government ram away with it? Blatant disregard for humanity and life could not go unnoticed. However, the geographical area in question had just been the last allege of the union to discontinue chain gang use in its penitentiaries in 1928. The South had not yet begun to consider African-Americans as people not in the slightest meaning of the word. Jones reiterates the sentiment of the doctors at the time and place with, pithy of a quick-fix by science requiring no behavior changes by blacks, in that respect was no hope for the race (26).The Health service claimed they informed the subjects of their disease, although an internship at the time the experiments began, Dr. J.W. Williams, stated the men received no such information. He also claims the i nternships registered the data collected without understanding the nature of the experiment both (Jones 5).The term racist as defined in the Random business firm Websters College Dictionary reads, a belief or doctrine that inwrought differences among various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, commonly involving the idea that ones own race is superior (1072). Given this definition, it is clear that the Tuskegee experiments were racist. To withhold the nature of the experiments from the subjects, the name of the disease, the treatment of its symptoms and to feel no remorse in inflicting this sort of medical exam indictment on swearword human beings is not just racist, but also immoral and unjust.Jones points out the Health Services did investigate the treatment of these patients in an Ad Hoc committee. The resulting medical treatments for the wives and children of the male subjects was offered with no cash restitution allowed (214). In the end, the governm ent did condition to $10 million dollars in payments to the living syphiltics, the next of kin for those already dead, living controls and the next of kin for the dead controls. If you had been living with the disease and neer treated, you would get a grand total of $37, 500 a woful amount for the pain and suffering from neglect and racist bigotry (217). plant CitedJones, James H. Bad Blood The scandalous story of the Tuskegee experiment when government doctors played God and science went mad. New York, NY The Free Press, 1981.Random dwelling Websters College Dictionary, 2nd Ed. New York, NY Random House, 1997.