Several ethical issues arise when dealing with infectious disease. For one, quarantining and administering vaccines to patients can be highly invasive, and therefore, mandating that everybody receive a vaccine can pose many problems. We see this problem arising today with parents not wanting to vaccinate their kids when introducing them into the public school systems.

Then there are the experiments done on patients with the diseases. In order to come up with a cure or vaccine, experiments must be done in order to make one effectively. This means that patients must give informed consent. However, there are risks associated with the experiments. The patients may not be cured, the symptoms could become worse, or the patients could even die. Since not enough people would be willing to sign up for an experiment that could possibly result in death, for the “greater good” scientists and doctors would sometimes deceive people into thinking that they’re being tested on something different or that they do indeed have a cure when they do not. They rationalized this because it is better that a few people die in order to save an entire population.

A good example of this is the Tuskegee study. Black men with syphilis were followed over the course of 40 years, as scientists analyzed the disease. Patients were prohibited from receiving treatment, even when it became available. Eventually, this led to blacks not trusting the healthcare system, which meant that, through not following simple health care laws and practices, they were further putting the general population at risk, as well as increases the poverty and worsens living conditions for the black demographic.

HR: Syphilis Article:

file:///Users/samanthabrisco/Downloads/Did%20Infamous%20Tuskegee%20Tuskegee%20and%20possible%20Lasting%20Mistrust%20(1).pdf