The Film
The film "Miss Evers' Boys" is a drama that is relates the major events in a research project entitled the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, which was administrated by the U.S. Public Health Service from 1932 to 1972 (Hermann, 2000).
The character of nurse Eunice Evers is fictional and her personal story is based on a play by David Feldschuh, but the Tuskegee Experiment actually took place in the way that the film presents it. This experiment is the notorious example of unethical behavior in the history of the U.S. public healthcare system, and the film underscores and substantiates this interpretation.
The Tuskegee project began with the goal of offering treatment to the black male participants, but funding soon dried up due to the Great Depression, which is when the focus of the project shifted from treating to merely observing the men. As a similar observational study was conducted in Oslo, Sweden, observing white men between 1891 and 1910, the point of the study was to discern if there were any differences between the races and the course of syphilis over the lifespan (Hermann, 2000).
From an ethical point of view, a key development occurred in the 1940, which was the discovery of penicillin. By 1950, penicillin was in widespread use. When the experiment began, there was not a therapy for syphilis that was known to be effective. However, the discovery of antibiotics ushered in an era in which viral infections, such as syphilis can be cured. Nevertheless, it is a matter of public record that as late as 1969, the Centers for Disease Control recommended that the Tuskegee Experiment should be continued, without providing the research subjects penicillin therapy (Hermann, 2000).
The film does a good job of dramatizing the ethical issues involved; and, in so doing, aids the audience in understanding how dedicated medical professionals, which included some African Americans, could have justified consistently lying to the...
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