Endpoint of Disease Determination

History has always served as a good reminder of why the institution of safeguards in public health is necessary. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment is a case in point. Whether or not a pre-emptive solution is deemed necessary in a given public health concern, currently remains an issue of strong contention.

Even though the marginal utility of health is of paramount concern in certain instances of public health surveillance, there has been some level of concern within the empirical literature regarding the intended end results of high risk studies and pseudo-interventions. In a bid to secure equality and accountability on behalf of the most vulnerable populations, proponents of justice have advanced strong arguments against arbitrary implementation of ad hoc measures solely for the purposes of research.

An analysis of data, study procedures, methods and conclusions of the Healthy Beginning Initiative (HBI) implemented under the auspices of the Global Plan initiative (Pharr et al., 2016) reveals characteristic features which violate principles of autonomy, liberty and privacy. While the gravity of the prevailing circumstances likely called for the level of intervention applied, it is unclear whether there was an approval of the study by an Institutional Review Board (IRB); which would necessitate a briefing of study subjects about the veracity of claims of reducing perinatal transmission of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).