Syphilis is one of the most dangerous infectious diseases in our world today, it has been studied time and time again. It has also been the center piece for various unethical medical studies and is commonly the diseases people think about when thinking about an unethical study. There are two main events which lead people to remember the questionable studies which were conducted when reviewing this disease. First the studies conducted in Guatemala, and the Tuskegee study. Both summarize well what ethical issues could arise when studying an infectious disease. In the first case, the study conducted in Guatemala, people were deliberately infected with syphilis to measure the effect of penicillin in different stages of the disease and its effectiveness in eradicating the disease from the body. In some cases, prostitutes were infected with the disease then payed to have sex with prisoners and others. This crosses various ethical boundaries, first they deliberately infected individuals to test the effectiveness of an experimental drug. Second, they encouraged the spreading of it by paying the prostitutes to spread the disease itself. The second unethical study conducted was conducted in 1932, it involved 400 participants which were all in lower financial status and African Americans. The study is unethical for many reasons, first the doctors informed the patients that they had “bad blood” which of course is not a real condition. All the participants were simply part of a long-term study which was measuring what the effects of syphilis is on people specifically African Americans. The original theory was that African Americans reacted differently to syphilis than white people. This study found nothing except for the fact that everyone reacts similar to syphilis. In both these cases there was no informed consent, and in the first case of Guatemala the study was chosen to take place in Guatemala because they knew they could get away with it. They could never get away with those research standards in the us. Both studies were somewhat rationalized through the claim that it will help further the understanding syphilis which is somewhat true, but it was conducted horribly, it was completely unethical and although it did lead to somewhat better understanding of the disease it came at a great cost. If these were somehow conducted in an ethical manner it would not have led to the horrible stories which have been told and uncovered about Tuskegee and Guatemala studies. As stated above the Tuskegee study along with the Guatemala study were both unethical, again the Tuskegee study ignored informed consent and flat out lied to the patients about bad blood.
Some of the consequences for conducting these unethical studies on the population especially the groups which were being specifically discriminated against. In the case of the Tuskegee study the poor black people of the area were specifically chosen and told they had bad blood and were drawn in to the study unknowingly. This will obviously skew the people away from white doctors as certain descendants of those form the Tuskegee study claim to do now a day. Another example of how this continues today is through the plays which tell the story of the Tuskegee study which was conducted in 1932.