I really enjoyed watching this movie. I love learning about historical events, although this event really saddened me.
Ethical principles protect participants in biomedical research studies from undue exploitation. In the Tuskegee study these principles were blatantly violated.
Between 1932 and 1972 a large group of black men (400) were infected with syphilis. The other (200) served as the control group. There was no informed consent, participants were not informed of the dangers they faced, scientists denied treatment to some patients to observe dangers and progression of the disease. Participants were forced to agree to an autopsy after death to have their funeral costs paid. They were not given penicillin to cure the disease even though it was easily available for patients.
Researchers used a misleading advertisement “Last Chance for Special Free Treatment”. Instead participants were subjected to a very painful spinal tap. Researchers never told participants about the Syphilis, instead told the men they were being treated for “bad blood”. Sadly they never received proper treatment to cure their illness.
Targeting a specific group using lies and deceit to pull off their plot. Playing on the intelligence of the misinformed, I just can’t fathom how anyone could put another human being through such unnecessary pain and torture.
This was truly research without empathy. Telling participants they were receiving “free” health care from the government. Baited with free meals, free rides to appointments and free burial insurance.
The African American nurse Eunice Rivers in my opinion was a big part of the downfall in this experiment. In the beginning she really thought she was doing a good deed. But once she knew that the experiment was a sham, she did nothing to advocate or protect the patients from further harm. Instead she betrayed and encouraged them to keep getting the useless treatment for 40 long painful years. She never once told one participant to discontinue treatment and get the penicillin shot. Good looking out for your people Eunice Rivers.
To add insult to injury the African American overly ambitious Dr. Bronus did nothing to stop this hellish experience for these male participants. Instead he continued to give orders to nurse Eunice to keep the men coming for the experiment. Knowing he was doing nothing to help any of the men. Selfishly he was only helping himself, wanting to prove the white doctors wrong concerning black doctors and nurses were just as good as their white counterparts. The men were only being sacrificed for the greater good of the race.
The doctors both black and white were irritatingly unethical and should have been punished by law, but instead was allowed to get away with murder.
To sum it all up, allegedly white doctors thought that blacks responded differently than whites to syphilis. That was the stated reasoning for this experiment. But in my opinion this was just research via racism, using black people as guinea pigs, destroying black lives and families.
The wives and children were never spoken of, they were affected by this disease as well. Living in America makes you really wonder if black lives really matter. This could be the reason that black americans don’t trust the health care system today. Some feel its better to take chances on health than to be sabotaged by the very people that took an oath to help you.
Trust is not only a foundational element to a doctor patient relationship but also is a vital factor in the patient’s decision to seek medical help before diseases advance beyond treatment possibilities and lives are lost.
