The Tuskegee and the Willowbrook studies are bad ethics because it violates the physician’s Hippocratic Oath and their Declaration of Professional Responsibility.
In the Hippocratic Oath “I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure”(Modern version). Instead the doctors were spreading diseases. They infected subjects with syphilis and hepatitis virus. They did not advocate for human well-being, instead contributed to their suffering. The subjects were not treated with compassion.
The Tuskegee study and the Willowbrook study are unethical and “bad science”. The use of data from these and other experiment can be ethically defensible based on when the research started. Until 1974 Act was established, that set guideline for protection of human subjects; they were no ethic standard in place for the use of human research. So, all over the vulnerable populations were used for different research.
In both experiment, I think the principle of respect for persons cannot ethically be defensible. This principle “incorporate at least two ethical convictions: first, that individuals should be treated as autonomous agents, and second, that persons with diminished autonomy are entitle to protection.” (Munson, p173). This allows an…show more content… The Tuskegee study did treat the men with due respect. Although, these men were poor and uneducated, and they should have being informed of the experiment and risk involved. The infection of subjects with syphilis and hepatitis virus and left untreated is disrespectful. And it violates person’s autonomy. The parents of the mentally retarded children in the Willowbrook hepatitis study gave consent, but not aware of the risk involved in the treatment. The subjects in Tuskegee and Willowbrook experiment are vulnerable population that did not receive any