Tuskegee/Henrietta Lacks

The Tuskegee Institute would test Syphilis on 600 African Americans, 399 would have Syphilis and 201 didn’t have Syphilis. They volunteered to do these tests so it’s not like they picked them randomly. This caused a lot of problems as soon as it became known to the public. Once people found out that they couldn’t use the vaccine to cure their Syphilis everyone got involved. When their families found out they started to wonder if they had it or if their children had it as well. I think the connection between Tuskegee and Henrietta Lacks are very obvious to the situation.

I will explain why I think they compare to each other in this essay. The first reason why they are alike is because of the events that occurred during this time period. In Tuskegee they used African American men to test Syphilis and they used Henrietta Lacks to run tests on. I believe this because it makes a lot of sense to me and it makes it a lot easier to compare them to each other. Nobody knew about these cases except for the medical community.

The only time everyone found out about it was when something really big happened which was death. In Tuskegee the men that had Syphilis would die and couldn’t use the vaccine to stay alive.Henrietta Lacks as soon as she died everyone started to ask questions and went into further research about her cells. To me it seems like everyone wants to do something about it as soon as someone dies from anything, instead of finding out when they are still alive.

The fact that they are like that really upsets me because they deserve to see that you actually care before they pass away. When they don’t see that it makes them feel bad and unloved, that’s never a good thing for someone to feel. The second way Tuskegee can be compared to Henrietta Lacks is their family.I believe this because their family members didn’t know what was going on to their loved ones. Nobody during these cases told their families what was going on.

To me I feel that they probably didn’t tell them because they didn’t want to get sympathy from their families. I don’t understand why they would keep it a secret from them since they would do anything for them. What I do understand is that some families keep secrets from one another because they are usually embarrassed by it. They don’t like to share information that are way too personal because then they could get too much attention.The third way they can be compared to each other is the how much the media got involved.

I believe this because they would write papers, mention it in the news, and they got people talking to one another. This all started when their family started to make a big deal when their loved ones died and they didn’t get a reason why. I feel that if the doctors told them the real reason why they died this wouldn’t have became a huge issue. The family of Henrietta feels that since they didn’t get anything from the profits that the medical community made off of Henrietta Lacks, they are going to cause a big scene to get people to listen to them.With the families from Tuskegee they don’t know how to explain to their kids why their father is no longer around and they want an explanation from all the doctors that did this to them. They also didn’t want to see their kids die from the same thing and they didn’t want their children to lose both of their parents.

Some people might argue that my comparisons are incorrect for many different reasons. They might say it was the disease that killed them before they could help them and that is the reason why people paid attention.While others might say that they weren’t allowed to tell their families what they were doing. Another thing they might mention is that I went in the wrong direction with this topic and the comparison with it.

The way that I look at it is everyone is entitled to their own opinions about my writing. I feel that if someone can make an argument out of my writing I feel better about my writing. Also if you can’t make an argument from your paper that you wrote than you didn’t prove your point as well as you should have. When you write you want to make sure that your audience sees your point of view.

Some audiences may take longer than others because it depends on how well they are educated on the topic. Today we learned a lot of different things from these cases. In Tuskegee we learned how we can cure Syphilis. With Henrietta Lacks we learned how cervical cancer was caused and how it can spread. We are impacted by this because we can educate ourselves more about these subjects to get a better understanding from it. We can also continue to study cells and figure out how to end more cancers or diseases, and discover more information about them at the same time.

Another thing that we gained from this is discovering how diseases can spread so quickly and what we can do to end it or prevent it. All of the knowledge that we learned from these cases makes me thankful for everything these people went through. The volunteers of Tuskegee and Henrietta Lacks have made history and made a name for their selves. Even though they are no longer with us in person they are continuing to educate everyone around this world. I for one am proud that they went through this so that we could learn from it.