The Tuskegee study was ethically objectionable because informed consent was flawed, an available treatment was not provided, and deception was practiced
If informed consent had been properly administered and research subjects informed of the availability of penicillin when it became available, why would this still represent an ethically objectionable study? (Select all that apply.)
a. The researcher has an obligation to actively do good for the research subjects; merely informing them of the availability of penicillin would not have been sufficient to meet this obligation.
b. It took place in one state of the Union and so had limited generalizability.
c. Some of the research subjects were illiterate and could not provide consent.
d. There was no need for the study to be performed in the first place, since enough was known about syphilis at the time.
e. Since African American men in Alabama were in an inferior social position, they constituted an underrepresented and potentially vulnerable population; every effort should have been made to include participants from other ethnic groups.
ANS: A, E
In 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service (U.S. PHS) initiated a study of syphilis in black men in the small rural town of Tuskegee, Alabama. The study, which continued for 40 years, was conducted to determine the natural course of syphilis in the adult black male. The research subjects were organized into two groups: one group consisted of 400 men who had untreated syphilis and the other consisted of a control group of 200 men without syphilis. Many of the subjects who consented to participate in the study were not informed about the purpose and procedures of the research. Some individuals were unaware that they were subjects in a study. The subjects were examined periodically but were not treated for syphilis, even after penicillin was determined to be an effective treatment for the disease in the 1940s. There was insufficient knowledge about the natural course of syphilis at the time the study was begun. Consent of illiterate subjects does not prohibit consent. Single-site research is not considered ethically objectionable per se.
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