Tuskegee experiment, bioethical violation as present and future in the development of human society

Introduction. The Tuskegee Experiment was a clinical study between 1932 and 1972 in the American city of Tuskegee, by the United States Public Health Service. Objective. Describe the history of the Tuskegee experiment, as a violation of bioethics for the present and future in the development of human society. Material and method. A retrospective historical study was carried out where theoretical methods such as documentary and historical-logical analysis were used. Development. Six hundred African-American sharecroppers, mostly illiterate who did not give informed consent, were studied to observe the natural progression of untreated syphilis and whether it could lead to death. This generated controversy and led to changes in the legal protection of patients in clinical studies, leading to the establishment of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research and the National Research Act. Conclusions. History has given us a painful lesson, but one that we cannot stop learning and the teaching that ethical sensitivity must be raised. Any scientific experiment, no matter how well technically designed, cannot forget the experimental subject, much less when it involves vulnerable populations.