A deeply shameful part of this nations history. Every bit as bad as the official approval of torture by the last administration. However, the nation did not know of this until 1972. Had it become public knowledge sooner, it would have been stopped sooner. I am sure that if Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, or Nixon had known the specifics of this, they would have put an end to it.
NPR : Remembering the Tuskegee Experiment
By then, dozens of the men had died, and many wives and children had been infected. In 1973, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) filed a class-action lawsuit. A $9 million settlement was divided among the study's participants. Free health care was given to the men who were still living, and to infected wives, widows and children.
But it wasn't until 1997 that the government formally apologized for the unethical study. President Clinton delivered the apology, saying what the government had done was deeply, profoundly and morally wrong:
"To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish.
"What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say, on behalf of the American people: what the United States government did was shameful.
"And I am sorry."
