Controversial Study In Bad Blood

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Bad Blood states that the controversial study was borne out of a need for resources when the original study that included treatment ran out of resources due to the Great Depression and Dr. Vonderlehr felt dissatisfied with the results of the project and the level of treatment. The film pitches the project as a crazy stunt to get the White House to pay attention to the affairs of Tuskegee again considering how dire the situation is in the city. So, the experiment was based in desperation and despair, despair over the African American’s situation and desperation to find funding and treatment and this emotional theme is present in all of the decisions and actions of the study going forward. Ignoring the reviews and complaints of Dr. Harris and…show more content…
Vonderlehr made a point to deny the patients treatment [James Jones, 1993] and in the film the Dr. Douglas states that they owe it to those who have already died to see the study through. Not considering that the scientists of the study went out of their way to deny the patients of treatment even when penicillin became the standard treatment as of 1947. While I do not have all extenuating details of the time, it is hard to believe that it was hard to procure resources after the great depression and all the way until the 1970s. In fact, I believe the fact that the United States government chose to continue to abstain from funding the study for forty years yet allowing it to continue as a statement of the racist tensions of the time. Maybe overall the U.S. government has a bigger role to play in this incident than Dr. Vonderlehr, more than likely the government truly did not care for these black men and regardless of the budget this study and many other attempts at treating African-Americans would have gone unfunded and unregulated. Like the USPHS funded study in Guatemala from 1946 to 1947 by U.S. researcher Dr. John C. Cutler, who’s also associated with the Tuskegee Study, where prisoners were purposely infected with Syphilis and encouraged to sleep with prostitutes [Arthur Caplan,

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