Ethics in Research: Miss Evers' Boys

Ethics in Research: Movie Review
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The film "Miss Evers' Boys" shows the ethical dilemmas the characters encounter with the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. The film presents a real-world experiment that the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) conducted in 1932, where a group of black men in the test were allowed to die, notwithstanding a developed cure. Two significant ethical dilemmas are presented in the film "Miss Evers' Boys": the lack of beneficence and the violation of informed consent. This paper will discuss the ethical dilemmas and the paramount ethical principles presented, how the test violated the American Nurses Association (ANA) 2015 code, and actions to protect human subjects.
Violation of Informed Consent
Informed consent is a critical principle of ethics of medical research. This principle dictates that medical researchers should inform the people participating concerning the procedures, purpose, benefits, and risks of study before voluntarily consenting to participate. However, violation of this principle is evident in the film in the context of the Tuskegee study since there was a lack of adequate information to the characters concerning the experiment's true nature. Apart from the autopsies, the participants lacked informed consent (Reverby, 2012). The lack of informed consent, as evident in the film, violates the respect and autonomy of the persons' principle of ethical conduct. Such an ethical breach is significantly egregious owing to the prolonged study period during which the characters do not receive effective treatment for their syphilis. The study took 40 years, and the health practitioners denied participants effective therapy for the dangerous illness (Tobin, 2022).
Lack of Beneficence
Lack of beneficence is another fundamental ethical dilemma in the film "Miss Evers' Boys." This ethical dilemma entails the ethical principle of enhancing the welfare and well-being of other people, especially patients. From the onset to the end of the Tuskegee study, the film portrays the negligence of other people's well-being and welfare. Researchers in the Tuskegee study significantly ignored the prioritization of the participant's well-being and health and undermined it by denying them treatment regardless of the discovery of penicillin. Penicillin existed in 1942 and was revered as an effective syphilis treatment. However, the U.S. government progressed with the study by ensuring participants with potential cures receive limited treatment (Braz et al., 2021).
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