Miss Everetts Boys Essay, Research Paper

Miss Everett?s Boys

My reaction to Miss Everett?s Boys is one of disgust and utter disbelief. I feel that the government is responsible for the colored men who lost their lives to syphilis during the time of the Tuskegee experiments located within Tuskegee, Alabama. I also feel that yet again this is an example of prejudice against blacks during the middle part to last half of the century.

At first the government wanted to cure the Syphilis epidemic that plagued over 80% of the black male population in that area. Later the government was willing to withhold and in-turn deny supplies to the Negroes of Tuskegee that could help fight the disease because some bureaucrat wanted to see how the untreated Negro male with syphilis reacts. The government of the time was willing to give money for a study of their untreated reactions but yet were unwilling to give money for treatment which I feel can be seen as and agreed to be by all an unethical act.

To think that the United States government would allow such a thing to occur is both damaging to what this country was founded upon and fought for by our forefathers. To think that the doctor himself was instead using lithium as a rub and being deceptive in that making the patients believe that they were being rubbed down with the medicinal mercury treatment of the time. This is yet another of unethical practices of this experiment. They used this placebo treatment to continue their research and make the men feel that they were being treated with the healthy antidote but in fact were not. This is astonishing to me that a government such as ours would be involved in such a thing at any day and age.

In conclusion I am appalled at the idea that our government would partake in such experiments. I feel that in our day and age such a thing is not likely to occur because of the amounts of restrictions placed on scientists in experiments. I also feel that since today is known as the information age it is unlikely that such a thing would slip by the media and draw negative attention. I hope that experiments such as these are no longer conducted and if they are actually become uncovered before any serious damage can be done.