President Bill Clinton issued a formal apology on May 16, 1997, for this previous government program.
- Forced sterilization
- Human radiation experiments
- Japanese-American internment camps
- Tuskegee syphilis study
The U.S. Public Health Service ran the Tuskegee Syphilis Study from 1932-1972. The Health Service recruited 600 African-American men telling them all they were being treated for “bad blood.” Each was given placebos although two-thirds were infected with syphilis. Penicillin became the standard treatment for syphilis in 1947. The Health Service physicians wanted to document the progression of the disease, then perform autopsies on the men.
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