Ethics, Infectious Disease and Syphilis

 

Infectious diseases have a long and deadly history and although we do not fear them much today, they were greatly feared throughout history. During the Plague of Florence, the Venetian Republic began a practice that is now referred to as quarantine. They required that all ships coming in to port were not allowed to disembark until after they waited for forty days tied to the dock (Pg. 69). The Venetians recognized that foreigners or anyone coming from the outside may have the plague and have the potential to spread it to them. This bias against immigrants was an act made out of fear and meant to potentially save the lives of Venetians. This attitude was not a safe measure necessarily. If one person on the ship was infected, they would spread the disease to others on the ship and they would die. Nevertheless, the practice of quarantine was used by many in Europe and even though it likely helped reduce the spread of the plague, it also doomed many people to death.

When the world came together in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, we were able to completely eradicate smallpox. This was a huge feat for humankind as it spelled the end to one of the deadliest diseases in our history. However, achieving this feat meant that some people had to submit to treatment that they didn’t want. The strategy used to eradicate smallpox was one that required many people to be identified and treated. When a case of smallpox was reported, a team would interview the patient and find out who they had contact with and vaccinate them. This meant that a great number of people had to be vaccinated for seemingly no reason. However, if they were not vaccinated, there was a possibility that they contracted the disease and it could therefore not be eradicated. It was decided that these people get the vaccination even if they didn’t want it as the threat smallpox poses to the world of far more significant than the qualms of one person. This utilitarian way of thinking ended up paying off and smallpox would be eradicated.

During WWII, the Germans and the Japanese performed extensive experiments on captives. These experiments were often brutal and done without the consent of the subjects. Some of the experiments they performed were tortuous for the subjects and most of them died one way or another. When the war ended and these experiments were discovered, new regulations on consent were created to protect those who would be subjects to medical experiments in what would be referred to as the Nuremburg Code. This would set the stage for modern rules regulating human experimentation and medical practice. Consent the most important rule we have. Without it, we are subject to an unknowable future of possible pain and suffering. The people who were under the treatment of the Germans and Japanese surely would not have agreed to be subjected to their experiments. Without proper knowledge of what the experiment entails, potential subjects have no way of knowing what is in store for them.

In 1932, the Public Health Service began a study that would last for forty years. This study is a prime example of unethical medical experimentation where the subjects are not given the proper ability to consent to their participation in the experiment. The researchers recruited 400 poor black men and offered to treat them for “Bad Blood”. In reality, these men were being observed to study the long-lasting effects of syphilis on the body. The subjects were never told what the experiment was really doing, and they were never given proper treatment for the disease. Years after the experiment began, penicillin was being used as an antibiotic for many diseases and was an effective treatment for syphilis. However, the subjects of the study were never given penicillin and were even prevented from going to another doctor to get it. The study resulted in the deaths of most if its subjects and revealed no new significant information. This study was unethical for its unwillingness to get consent from its subjects, for preventing the treatment of syphilis and for allowing the needless death of most of the subjects.

As a result of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, many people are untrusting of doctors and medical professionals. There should be no surprise that the people affected by this study are weary of doctors and don’t want to participate in medical research. The study only chose poor black men to be subjects and most of them ended up dead. This does not make it easy for a community to be trusting towards medical professionals. Also, having a study that is as narrow and unethical will make it hard for the greater scientific community to accept the results of this experiment. Syphilis does not choose its target, it’ll infect those who are vulnerable and there was no reason to believe that this was not true. When the study only evaluated its effect on a specific group of people and didn’t get consent from any of the subjects, the value of the study is greatly depreciated. Hopefully, we will never see an experiment like this ever again.

All information was gathered from class discussions and information about the Nuremburg Code was gathered from the United States Holocaust Museum