Running head: Miss Evers

The film Miss Evers Boys is a shining example of unethical medical research. The film creatively documents the Tuskegee experiment that studied negro men in Alabama, some of which were diagnosed with syphilis. Despite the availability of penicillin, these men were studied longitudinally and deceptively without treatment for decades, to discover the long term effects of untreated syphilis on their particular population. The film gives vivid and obvious examples to breaches in medical ethics and the experiment and the investigation into it paved the way for codes of conduct and ethical standards that today are mainstream. Subsequent to the investigation on this particular case, medical and ethical guidelines for participants in research were developed and implemented to protect future research participants from undo harm and risk associated with participation in research studies. Ethical guidelines and elements such as informed consent, beneficence, justice, respect for persons, duty based ethics, virtue based ethics and rights based ethics were outlined and became criteria for approved and funded research and are put forth by The Belmont Report. Such standards ensure the safety of human and fetal research participants in clinical trial participation and serve as standards for quality and ethical responsibility among researchers in human based interaction or intervention based research. Such declarations are a best attempt to keep such egregious human rights based ethical violations, such as those depicted in the film from happening henceforth. The film interweaves breaches of all ethical standards. Miss Evers was chosen to recruit, treat and retain men to participate in the survey. Despite her best intentions, she herself was not fully informed as to the specifics of the research and was used for her skin color, dedication, servitude and passiveness towards physicians and the institution. Initially, her excitement and dedication outweighed her knowledge but served to persuade the needed particiapants to join. While from the outset some participants were being treated, when the funding for the program expired and the project became study and documenting untreated men, Miss Evers was easily persuaded to keep this change of course a

Running head: Miss Evers

secret. She morally knew this was wrong and struggled silently with this knowledge. This exemplifies the concept of informed consent. Informed consent allows the participant to be fully informed as to the risks and benefits associated with participating in such research. In informing the participant it allows them to make a reasonable judgment as to whether the feel they should participate. They must comprehend the information and voluntarily agree to participation and all that it may potentially entail. The men in the Tuskegee experiment were never informed that they were not being treated and deceived routinely in an effort to allow them to decline and allow the disease to progress untreated so that the results of it may be documented. These men could have been treated easily and cheaply by penicillin. They were not treated and left to suffer and die. By not informing them of the risks, ultimately being death, virtue based and rights based ethics were violated. These unfortunate men may have lost their lives in the name of science but thankfully their sacrifice and the sacrifices of others like them, although unknowingly, lead to life saving dialogue, investigation and measures that guide research today. The development and implementation of such guideline and Internal Review Boards helps to ensure that similar situations are not repeated. The principles of justice and beneficence go hand in hand. Justice in this sense is defined as giving subjects fair treatment and fairness in distribution of benefits. In the case of Miss Evers Boys, the participants were chosen carefully to ensure their ignorance and continued participation. They were part of an ethnic and economic minority and were selected for such characteristics. It made them easily available ande easy to manipulate. They trusted the researchers. Justice was withheld from them and in effect they were unknowing victims. The principle of beneficence is commonly described as to do no harm. Both Miss Evers and the physicians and funders behind the Tuskegee study clearly knew that by withholding, discouraging and denying treatment of a preventable and treatable illness that harm was imminent and definite. Not only did the designers of the study know harm would befall each man, they did not inform, prevent or treat them. They orchestrated to deceive and ultimately advance the illness

Running head: Miss Evers and death of the participants.

The researchers and designers of experiments, clinical trials and studies have a duty and obligation to respect, inform and advocate for the related participants. Ethical and moral guidelines serve to protect the participants and the researchers for personal, ethical and legal quandaries. For research to produce legitimate results that individual disciplines, human kind and science as a whole can incorporate in our body of knowledge and advance our practices it must be conducted with sound ethical principles and a moral foundation. Participants must be informed of risks and potential benefits and burdens associated with the research. Participants recruited to participate should benefit from the findings and potential beneficial application of the findings. Participants should be informed, treated fairly, advocated for and appreciated for their contribution to research and science. The use of deception or undue influence in order to promote results is undeniably unfair and maleficent to participants and denigrates the validity and value of any results derives from it. It is injustice in the highest order and violates duty, virtue and rights based ethics.

Running head: Miss Evers

Critique of the film Miss Evers Boys Tia N. Bowden Barry University

Running head: Miss Evers

Sargent, J. (1997). Miss Evers Boys. Los Angeles.