Research a famous whistleblower not mentioned in this lesson. Summarize briefly who this person was and why this person was a whistleblower. Compare and contrast this person to the whistleblower from Enemy of the People, Dr. Stockmann.
Peter Buxton was the whistleblower in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. He was an interviewer for the U.S. Public Health Service and after learning that the experiment was extremely unethical he tried to uncover its injustice within the PHS. For six years these attempts failed, so he leaked the story to Jean Heller of the Washington Star, which published the story and led to the termination of the study. The Experiment attempted to understand the course of untreated syphilis based on a clinical study of 399 African American syphilitic farmers in Alabama from 1932 to 1972. The study was so blatantly unethical not only because information and basic medical care was prohibited, when a cure for syphilis became available, its access was denied. “In 1943, the PHS began to administer penicillin to patients with syphilis. Study subjects were excluded.” The aftermath of Buxton’s revelation caused the US to better regulate its ethics practices and has formed the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) and “it also led to federal regulation requiring Institutional Review Boards for protection of human subjects in studies involving human subjects”. Policies such as “informed consent” were adopted as well.
Unlike Dr. Stockman, Peter Buxton was not a doctor. Both Dr. Stockman and Buxton worked in areas of Public Health. They were alike in the way that they saw something happening that was unethical and very dangerous to human lives. They both decided to go against the majority to uncover the injustice and source of harm. Peter Buxton’s news eventually came out the harm was stopped but we do not know what happened in the end with Dr. Stockman’s information. However, their goals were the same. They saw human lives being treated as disposable and tried to shed light on sources of harm and injustice with the hope of ending unnecessary harm.
Works Cited
"Research Ethics: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study." Tuskegee University. Tuskegee University. Web. 21 Oct. 2009.
"Tuskegee syphilis experiment." Wikipedia.org. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.,. Web. 21 Oct. 2009.
Picture
http://www.anairhoads.org/govexperiments/tuskegee.shtml
I loved your choice! I am majoring in Community Health and found Buxton very interesting considering his actions caused a ripple effect that will affect me in my career. I think you left out the wordle however. Great job overall!
ReplyDeleteI am wondering how you found this information. Very interesting and you gave a very good description on Peter Buxton. Dr. Stockmann and Buxton really did have to good of the people at heart and you can see this by them giving up everything they are accustomed to, to speak the truth.
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