Non Therapeutic Research

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From time to time we experience health challenges, whether it being mental or physical. Medical practice overtime has made considerable progress towards fighting or controlling many of the challenges that we tend to face. It is through the great use of research, that treatments and cures are discovered. Medical researchers conduct therapeutic and non-therapeutic research. Therapeutic research has a sole purpose to treating any disease. Then there’s non-therapeutic research which is conducted for furthering knowledge about human health. Researchers and physicians often use human beings as objects of scientific investigation. This type of research raises concerns, including how consent is obtained, selection of participants, and the well-being …show more content…
Public Health Service (USPHS) began a non-therapeutic study in the town of Tuskegee in Macon County, Alabama. The USPHS intended to examine the effects of untreated syphilis by testing 600 men. Out of the 600 men, only 400 had syphilis and 200 were currently uninfected, but used as the control group. The experiment was supposed to last only six months, but in actuality it lasted for well over 40 years. During this time the 400 men with syphilis were deceived and lied to by the doctors. They were told that they were receiving treatment for “bad blood”. The men were actually receiving no treatment whatsoever. When Penicillin became known to be a very effective treatment, the men were not granted any of it. Instead the men were given ointments along with some aspirin. On top of that, doctors were withholding any treatment. They got local doctors and the U.S. Army to not treat any of the men. The doctors failed to inform the participants of the true facts and intentions of the experiment, and therefore did not receive any proper consent. Some of the participants in this experiment suffered many effects, ranging from paralysis of limbs, neuro damages, some died in advance from syphilitic lesions, wives were infected, and …show more content…
Various unethical practices were used in this study. One of the major issues that I saw in this case was informed consent, which basically means informing the research participants of the intention of the experiment that was to be taking place. The selection of the participants was unethical too. They were not told that the study was intended to a syphilis matter. The use of “bad blood” misinformed the men. The use of Socio-economic status of participants and racial lines was unethical, and using doctors and nurses because of their power to carry out research. The men were refused and denied access to the use of medical treatment, which violated ethics too. Overall I do believe that this study was unethical in every way. Ethical standards are now in place to assure that a study like this could not be replicated in way, shape, or