Both of the medical studies for syphilis and venereal diseases were horrific and unethical, and both were performed on minorities. Because of these studies it has become very hard for public health officials to gain a large number of participants for their studies. This means that they need to do things, such as stretch the truth to get their participants.

The doctors that were in charge of the Tuskegee experiment stated that it was an “unfortunate experiment.” In the article about their justification for the study they talk about how what they did was grossly immoral, but with moral intentions. The studies that were performed in Alabama were so horrific that they were compared to that of a nazi war camp. One of the arguments the doctors use is that they were not the first study to withhold treatment for individuals and therefore should not be singled out. This to me is incredibly wrong still. That is the same as saying that two wrongs make a right, which we learned in kindergarten is not true.

As stated in African Americans’ views on research and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, it is no secret that African Americans are very wary of participating in medical studies. This is due in large part because they know of past studies, and how much pain and suffering the participants went through, and that all of the participants were African American. Because of this unethical study it is very hard nowadays to study how African Americans react to certain diseases or drugs in a clinical setting because most of them would not like to go through what those in the Tuskegee experiment did. The issue with medical studies is that people often form their opinion for the drug being tested on the one study. It is a common issue that we talk about in my psychology classes that people generalize and use others experiences to form their own opinion without really knowing anything about the actual issues. These two studies from Guatemala and Tuskegee have shaped how people view all medical studies today and not in a way that medical professionals or health departments would like.