Genelyn Garma
Professor Van Eijk
Anthropology 474
25 October 2014
The Spectrum of Race
Medical knowledge has become a powerful tool to exploit differences within individuals in our society. The differences among individuals on the basis of social characteristics and qualities, known as social differences, are perceived through research and studies in a negative manner. Gender, race, socioeconomic status, and income are one many examples of social differences that exist. Through articles that we have read in the past, it could be arguably be seen that the question of race and gender alone are motivation for medical professions to conduct research to distinguish and/or create a type of person out of the spectrum that society have created.
Human variation attempts to categorize people into groups, which consequently alter the perception of the individual. The identities of individuals are eliminated as they encounter discrimination and stereotypes based on the beliefs of a particular group that people categorized them in. It is no surprise that sex and race are primarily the social difference that society emphasizes on, according to Krieger and Fee, these divisions are what society considers important, it is how we classify and collect data, and organize our social life as a nation (239). Consequently, these variations that society constructed influenced how subjects were chosen for profitable medical research. It has become evident that interplay between race and gender have resulted to dehumanizing procedures in order to further medical knowledge, even if it means breaking the standards of ethical code. International Review Boards (IRB) is composed of scientific and nonscientific members whose duty is to ensure the safety of patients in a trial. Their purpose is to review and approve the trial protocol and methods to be used in obtaining and documenting the informed consent of trial subjects (Petryna, 186). It ultimately exists to protect the subjects that participate in research; unfortunately, IRB was not developed until after abused had already occurred in which negatively affected countless lives. This is evident in the African-American subjects from the Tuskegee Syphilis study who were subjected to cruel intentions based of their identity. According to Epstein, Bodily Differences and Collective Identities: The Politics of Gender and Race in Biomedical Research in the United States, “racial minorities were often considered to be ‘hard to recruit’ – especially African-Americans, who were said to reject the role of medical ‘guinea pig’ out of suspicion of the long history of medical experimentation on black people that dates back to slavery and includes the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study (186). …show more content…
Group of vulnerable blacks, including children, soldiers, and prisoners, have been consistently targeted (Washington, 385). The Tuskegee Syphilis implicated efforts to find distinct types of people by only using African-American as their subjects in the study due to the belief that blacks manifested the venereal disease differently compared to the whites (157). There is no denying that racism was a driving force for this research, even Public Health Services (PHS) stepped in to help to make this belief true as they were confident that “blacks are a notoriously syphilis-soaked race” despite the fact that 61% of true syphilis cases in the Macon County were contracted congenitally and non-venereal (160). PHS and those involved in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study already had a negative presumption about the African-American race, they expected results that validate their beliefs in racial dimorphism regarding syphilis, therefore, they completely supported for the inhumane research to proceed. For the sake of science and to further medical knowledge, the Public Health Service physicians went to the extreme to manipulate and deceive African-American subjects into believing they were receiving treatment for their “bad blood”. According to Washington, bad blood accounted for many illnesses other than syphilis; it commonly referred to a wide array of symptoms from anemic blood to muscle aches, general malaise, disorders such as parasitic infections, gonorrhea, syphilis, and other venereal diseases (162). Physicians recognized that African-American in the 1932 suffered greatly through poverty, therefore, were more susceptible to infectious disease. They took advantage of their socioeconomic status to lure potential subjects to partake in the research studies without disclosing the true purpose. Little did the subjects know was that physicians
Professor Van Eijk
Anthropology 474
25 October 2014
The Spectrum of Race
Medical knowledge has become a powerful tool to exploit differences within individuals in our society. The differences among individuals on the basis of social characteristics and qualities, known as social differences, are perceived through research and studies in a negative manner. Gender, race, socioeconomic status, and income are one many examples of social differences that exist. Through articles that we have read in the past, it could be arguably be seen that the question of race and gender alone are motivation for medical professions to conduct research to distinguish and/or create a type of person out of the spectrum that society have created.
Human variation attempts to categorize people into groups, which consequently alter the perception of the individual. The identities of individuals are eliminated as they encounter discrimination and stereotypes based on the beliefs of a particular group that people categorized them in. It is no surprise that sex and race are primarily the social difference that society emphasizes on, according to Krieger and Fee, these divisions are what society considers important, it is how we classify and collect data, and organize our social life as a nation (239). Consequently, these variations that society constructed influenced how subjects were chosen for profitable medical research. It has become evident that interplay between race and gender have resulted to dehumanizing procedures in order to further medical knowledge, even if it means breaking the standards of ethical code. International Review Boards (IRB) is composed of scientific and nonscientific members whose duty is to ensure the safety of patients in a trial. Their purpose is to review and approve the trial protocol and methods to be used in obtaining and documenting the informed consent of trial subjects (Petryna, 186). It ultimately exists to protect the subjects that participate in research; unfortunately, IRB was not developed until after abused had already occurred in which negatively affected countless lives. This is evident in the African-American subjects from the Tuskegee Syphilis study who were subjected to cruel intentions based of their identity. According to Epstein, Bodily Differences and Collective Identities: The Politics of Gender and Race in Biomedical Research in the United States, “racial minorities were often considered to be ‘hard to recruit’ – especially African-Americans, who were said to reject the role of medical ‘guinea pig’ out of suspicion of the long history of medical experimentation on black people that dates back to slavery and includes the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study (186). …show more content…
Group of vulnerable blacks, including children, soldiers, and prisoners, have been consistently targeted (Washington, 385). The Tuskegee Syphilis implicated efforts to find distinct types of people by only using African-American as their subjects in the study due to the belief that blacks manifested the venereal disease differently compared to the whites (157). There is no denying that racism was a driving force for this research, even Public Health Services (PHS) stepped in to help to make this belief true as they were confident that “blacks are a notoriously syphilis-soaked race” despite the fact that 61% of true syphilis cases in the Macon County were contracted congenitally and non-venereal (160). PHS and those involved in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study already had a negative presumption about the African-American race, they expected results that validate their beliefs in racial dimorphism regarding syphilis, therefore, they completely supported for the inhumane research to proceed. For the sake of science and to further medical knowledge, the Public Health Service physicians went to the extreme to manipulate and deceive African-American subjects into believing they were receiving treatment for their “bad blood”. According to Washington, bad blood accounted for many illnesses other than syphilis; it commonly referred to a wide array of symptoms from anemic blood to muscle aches, general malaise, disorders such as parasitic infections, gonorrhea, syphilis, and other venereal diseases (162). Physicians recognized that African-American in the 1932 suffered greatly through poverty, therefore, were more susceptible to infectious disease. They took advantage of their socioeconomic status to lure potential subjects to partake in the research studies without disclosing the true purpose. Little did the subjects know was that physicians