The Review of Miss Evers' Boys

The most controversial scientific experiment in American history was Tuskegee Study, which followed the progress of experiment of 412 black patients untreated syphilis experiment in African-American sharecroppers for forty years. The movie " Miss Evers' Boys" was through the eyes of Evers to recall the tale of the study, it exposure that the transformation of a government-sponsored syphilis treatment experiment, it started as a good program, but turned into a horror for black sharecroppers. The rash governmental decision and barefaced racism caused this tragedy.

Tuskegee study began as helping the poor farmers to provide syphilis treatment. However, after the funding disintegrated, a doctor visited Washington and offered a new project for funding, which studied untreated African-American dealing with syphilis as a comparison for the white patient with syphilis. Miss Evers was a black nurse, but she persuaded black farmers to join the program and conceal the truth. She became a friend with these patients. On one hand, Miss Evers wanted to support the study. On other hand, she also wanted to protect and comfort her friends. Even though Evers felt ambivalent, she still continued to help the doctor to conduct the study. After penicillin became available to treat syphilis, those black patients were still not given any treatment. Many black died, others suffered great pain during the forty years. As Evers' testimony in the court, she said that all the damages caused to black patients would be justified by the possible benefits obtained for the black community in general. This utilitarian attitude implied that the right of powerful agencies and medical companies were above the common right.

As we can see, the rash governmental decision and racism caused this tragedy. This was ridiculous that the government confirmed this experiment, and tried to find a connection between race and syphilis. How could they find difference? It is impossible to find different affects between race and any diseases. As we can see, all functions of human body are same, even though they are different races. It is hard to imagine that the government would use White people for this experiment. Obviously, racism played a role in this decision. How can they treat other races like rats to do human experiment? Such blind and human-induced tragedy portrayed in this movie is unbelievable，it should not be repeated any more because it violates the basic human rights. In addition, the discovery of vaccination needs to be tested in humans, but if the experiment is based on groundless hypothesis, it must be inoperative and harmful.

In conclusion, "Miss Evers' Boys" gives us a journey to look back at this most horrible tragedy in the American medical history. This human-induced tragedy gives a lesson to us because of the rash governmental decision and barefaced racism could have been be avoided if white people cared more others.