Ethical Research
Research ethics not only protect the rights of human subjects but also encompass a broader range of principles. The notorious Tuskegee study in Alabama that began in 1932and ended in1972 studied black men with syphilis. The study violated ethical principles in that informed consent was not obtained, confidentiality was violated and treatment was withheld when it became available. The study is well known, because of the tragedy it caused for many people and also because of the sheer lack of ethical consideration shown by the scientists concerned. The United States Public Health Service conducted a study for that began in 1932 and lasted until 1972, not the six months that was expected and is described as "the longest non-therapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history" (Brunner, 2009).
The Tuskegee Syphilis Study was conducted from 1932 to 1972 around Tuskegee, Alabama. Six hundred poor, and mostly illiterate, African-American males, 400 of whom were infected with syphilis, were monitored for 40 years. Free medical examinations were given; however, subjects were not told about their diagnosis. Even though a cure (penicillin) became available in the 1950s, the study continued until 1972 with participants being denied proper treatment or given fake treatments and placebos, instead. In some cases, when subjects were diagnosed as having syphilis by other physicians, researchers intervened to prevent treatment. Many of the subjects died slow and painful deaths of syphilis during the study, which was stopped in 1973 by the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare only after its existence was publicized and became a political embarrassment.
Congressional intervention eventually led to the publication of the Belmont Report in 1979, which is now required reading for everyone involved in human subject research. The
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Belmont Report identifies three basic ethical principles regarding all human subject research: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice.
Respect for persons requires medical researchers to obtain informed consent from their study participants, which means that participants must be given accurate information about their circumstances and treatment options so that they can decide what will happen to them. Beneficence means the all test subjects must be told of all possible risks as well as benefits of the treatment they agree to undergo. A great deal of research in the social and behavioral sciences, however, involves minimal risk procedures, such as gathering and reporting on aggregate data using surveys and interviews. Some research involves manipulations and deception, both of which are permissible if investigators provide justification for such measures in the protocol. The protocol should also contain adequate debriefing procedures when the research involves deception. The context of examples such as the Tuskegee Study and experiments, injustice is obvious. In non-medical research, however, the issue of justice presents in more nuanced ways. Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, speaks to an ethical duty to research subjects that goes beyond non-harming. "In thinking about justice toward subjects, researchers need to consider equitable selection so that individuals are chosen on the basis of factors clearly relevant to the problems being studied. Researchers also need to consider equitable distribution of advantages to research subjects and others who could benefit from the knowledge gained by the research" (Gostin 1991ical principles. In this study, the ethical concerns are invasion of privacy, lack of informed consent, and a failure to protect against deductive disclosure of identity.

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The principle of justice is actually two-fold. Individual justice means that a doctor or researcher cannot administer potentially helpful treatment to some favored class of participants while offering riskier treatments to anyone else. Societal justice maintains that research participants must be selected fairly and randomly, without consideration of any economic, social, and gender class. Obviously, researchers in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study violated all three of these principles, as participants were lied to about their condition, lied to about the treatment they were receiving, and selected based on race, gender, and economic class.
Conclusion
Although the Tuskegee Syphilis Study was conducted in a period of history when blacks were not viewed as equal to whites, today's society can learn many lessons and apply many changes to the wrongful acts that were committed. Today, we have various laws that will help to prevent such criminal acts from occurring. Many new laws and new procedures were formed as a result of offenses such as the Tuskegee Study. Educating future generations about incidents like this will help to ensure that history does not repeat itself. Educating patients about their rights will enable and empower them to require nothing less than the best medical care possible from their healthcare professionals. The Tuskegee Syphilis study has left us with unpleasant memories of how doctors neglected the oath they took to save lives, and went on to experiment with human lives as a mere means to an end. One of the reverberating consequences of this study is the legacy of distrust which has elicited: it is still having negative consequences on medical practice in America and around the world. Although President Clinton apologized in 1997 for the atrocities committed against blacks by white American doctors in Tuskegee for forty years, it
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References
Brunner, Borgna: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Retrieved April 6, 2009, from Tuskegee University Web site: http://www.tuskegee.edu/Global/Story.asp?s=1207586
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. Public Health Service
Syphilis Study at Tuskegee: The Tuskegee Timeline. Retrieved April 6, 2009, from Center for Disease Control and Prevention Web site: http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm
Tuskegee Patient Medical Files. Retrieved April 7, 2009, from The National Archives
Web site: http://www.archives.gov/southeast/finding-aids/tuskegee.html
Gostin, Lawrence. 1991. "Ethical Principles for the Conduct of Human Subject Research: Population-Based Research and Ethics." The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 19 (3-4): 191-201.
Clinton, Bill. 1997. “Remarks by the President in Apology for the Study Done in Tuskegee”.
The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/cldintonnp.htm
American Medical Association. 2012. “Code of Medical Ethics: Informed Consent”. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medicalethics/ opinion808.page