A-P-O-L-O-G-Y

Former President Clinton’s apology for the Tuskegee Syphilis Study seemed very sincere. He made the effort to reach all the people affected by the study. Clinton was able to admit that the Government had failed and the mistrust that evolved from the study needed to be ended. He made four proposals to help ensure that “medical research practices are sound and ethical, and that researcher’s work more closely with communities.” The first was to have a fund that allowed for the study of bioethics in research and health care. The second involves the government being more active in the community, so that the mistrust can be ended. The third is to increase the researcher’s knowledge in bioethics. The fourth proposal is to allow for minority groups to gain knowledge of bioethics.
I found it interesting that Clinton towards the beginning of his speech, called the White House the “people’s house.” During the Tuskegee Study this was obviously not true. An apology by the government was long overdue. He also mentioned how medical people are “supposed” to help you. That is why the need for funding the study and research of bioethics is so important. There is a lot of trust that is put on the medical profession.
The government also started the regulation of needing full consent for any federally funded research. It seems like this should have already been made a policy after Nuremberg Trials.
Making sure that medical research practices are ethical is very crucial and all his proposals are justified to enable this. But it feels like the community of Tuskegee as a whole is ignored. The community is described as being a low-income area with a high mortality rate. The community was also poorly educated. The government should also try and make a fund that goes to help poorer communities with minorities. To make sure they are getting an education and are receiving the opportunity to be healthy. Had the Tuskegee community been educated more on Syphilis then the people could have rebelled instead of trusting a deceitful doctor.

( The poster of “don’t kiss me” I think shows how desperate medical institutions were in trying to stop the spread of TB. )

Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) is a scary thought. This disease can take up to 2 years to treat verses the 6 months of regular TB. It is also believed that MDR TB is man made. When the treatments for TB were not being properly followed it caused for MDR TB. This definitely had consequences and it changed how treatment and management of other diseases are controlled. New programs like DOT are costly, but they help to make sure treatment is being done correctly.

The podcast talked about ways to protect your self from MDR TB like having better TB control and rapid diagnosis. But yet the outbreak that happened in Thailand, occurred in an area where it was crowded and poorly ventilated. This made it easy for the disease to be transmitted. What should be proposed to help protect the areas that are not economically stable? Having a costly treatment program is not realistic.

The policy to screen immigrants and refugees for TB coming to the United States might make your back yard feel safe, but it mostly likely wont be 100% safe. The disease is powerful enough to be a “global epidemic” and should be taken seriously. A vaccine is still being researched while outbreaks continue to occur. MDR TB will be a concerning issue for many generations to come. Since it takes so long to treat MDR TB it will be harder to stop any major breakouts. If a serious outbreak ever occured in the US, I wouldn't be surprised if fear drove people to start wearing face masks. The diagnosis of TB is already difficult and having a strong form of it like MDR TB only increases the need for a vaccination.

This website had some interesting information on TB, the map posted is also from this site. It looks like the US is fortunate to not have as many cases as the other countries, but it might just be because of the wealth or even maybe the screening policy.
http://earthtrends.wri.org/updates/node/177