Fiftieth Anniversary of Uncovering the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The Story and Timeless Lessons.
Fiftieth Anniversary of Uncovering the Tuskegee Syphilis Study: The Story and Timeless Lessons.
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DOI：
10.1164/rccm.202201-0136so
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发表时间：
2022-05-15
影响因子：
24.7
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中科院分区：
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今年是塔斯基吉梅毒研究发现50周年，当时公众得知公共卫生服务局（疾病预防控制中心的前身）40年来故意拒绝对400名非裔美国人的危及生命的疾病进行有效治疗。男性。2010年，我们了解到，同一个研究小组在20世纪40年代故意让数百名危地马拉人感染梅毒和淋病，目的是开发更好的预防这些感染的方法。尽管有15篇期刊文章详细介绍了结果，但没有医生发表批评塔斯基吉研究的信件。知情同意从未被寻求;相反，公共卫生服务的研究人员欺骗这些人相信他们正在接受专家的医疗护理。这项研究是一个特别有力的寓言，因为读者可以识别叙述中的关键人物，并将他们视为日常生活中遇到的人的典范这些有血有肉的人物比生物伦理学教科书中的枯燥叙述更生动地传达了研究伦理学的原则。这项研究促进了改革，导致研究伦理基础设施的根本变化。人们之所以不采取措施制止那些事后看来人人都认为应受谴责的行为，原因是复杂的。缺乏想象力、合理化和制度约束是巨大的障碍。这项研究的中心教训是需要停下来思考，反思和检查自己的良心;说话的勇气;最重要的是行动的意志力。历史，虽然是关于过去的，但却是我们对未来错误和违法行为的最佳防御。
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the uncovering of the Tuskegee syphilis study, when the public learned that the Public Health Service (precursor of the CDC) for 40 years intentionally withheld effective therapy against a life-threatening illness in 400 African American men. In 2010, we learned that the same research group had deliberately infected hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhea in the 1940s, with the goal of developing better methods for preventing these infections. Despite 15 journal articles detailing the results, no physician published a letter criticizing the Tuskegee study. Informed consent was never sought; instead, Public Health Service researchers deceived the men into believing they were receiving expert medical care. The study is an especially powerful parable because readers can identify the key players in the narrative and recognize them as exemplars of people they encounter in daily life—these flesh-and-blood characters convey the principles of research ethics more vividly than a dry account in a textbook of bioethics. The study spurred reforms leading to fundamental changes in the infrastructure of research ethics. The reason people fail to take steps to halt behavior that in retrospect everyone judges reprehensible is complex. Lack of imagination, rationalization, and institutional constraints are formidable obstacles. The central lessons from the study are the need to pause and think, reflect, and examine one’s conscience; the courage to speak; and above all the willpower to act. History, although about the past, is our best defense against future errors and transgressions.