Ethics & Behavior Special Issue
Special Guest Editors
Vickie M. Mays, PhD, MSPH and Rueben Warren DDS, MPH, DRPH, MDIV
This special ethics & behavior issue addresses the legacy of the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) Syphilis Study on health reform, particularly the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It contains twelve articles, commentaries and essays on this study, and the history and current practices of ethical abuses affecting American Indian, Latino, Asian American, and African American communities in the United States and in one case, internationally.
“As the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act moves forward to ensure health care for all citizens the foundation of its efforts must include guiding principles that will reach those who in the past have not benefitted from the health care system,” explains Guest Editor Vickie Mays. “This special issue examines whether the legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee and President Clinton’s Apology to the Survivors of that egregious study play a role in the participation behaviors of African Americans and other racial/ethnic minorities in health care research and health care services.”
Several other themes are present in this collection of articles, including the consequences of individual consent on community well‐being, need for better government oversight in research and health care ethics, and a call for overhauling bioethics training to develop a population level, culturally driven approach in research bioethics. The articles in this special issue challenge the “cultural paranoia” of mistrust and provide insights into how the distrust may serve to lengthen rather than shorten the lives of racial/ethnic minorities who have been used as guinea pigs on more than one occasion.
Most importantly, this issue “questions whether health care reform can be successful without addressing these past experiences, as we go forward to developing a health care approach that provides preventive, care and treatment services to those who previously have not been a part of the system,” says Mays.
Free Article Access
The following articles and commentaries from this special issue are available to read and download for FREE
- The Legacy of the U. S. Public Health Service Study of Untreated Syphilis in African American Men at Tuskegee on the Affordable Care Act and Health Care Reform Fifteen Years after President Clinton’s Apology
Vickie M. Mays
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10508422.2012.730808 - Rethinking Research Ethics for Latinos: The Policy Paradox of Health Reform and the Role of Social Justice
Lisa Cacari‐Stone and Magdalena Avila
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10508422.2012.729995 - Ethical Responsibility in Healing and Protecting the Families of the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study in African American Men at Tuskegee: An Intergenerational Storytelling Approach
Edward P. Wimberly
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10508422.2012.730007 - One Voice: A Commentary on the Syphilis Study at Tuskegee by a Descendant’s Daughter
Lillie Tyson Head
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10508422.2012.730004 - For paid access to all articles from this special issue please visit the Ethics and Behavior Website
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hebh20/22/6
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