US fund apologises for role in racist Tuskegee syphilis study

Starting in 1932, government medical workers in rural Alabama withheld treatment from unsuspecting Black men infected with syphilis so doctors could track the disease and dissect their bodies afterwards. Fifty years after the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study was revealed to the public and halted in 1972, the organisation that made those funeral payments, the Milbank Memorial Fund, is publicly apologising to the descendants for its role. Tuskegee syphilis study Starting in 1932, government medical workers in rural Alabama withheld treatment from unsuspecting Black men infected with syphilis so doctors could track the disease and dissect their bodies afterwards. Years later, books including Reverby’s, Examining Tuskegee, The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy, published in 2009, detailed the fund’s involvement.