MAKING AMENDS

Public Health Fund ‘Ashamed’ of Its Role in Racist Tuskegee Syphilis Study

It issued an apology and a donation to a descendants’ group at a ceremony in Tuskegee with relatives of study subjects.

A New York fund that focuses on state health care policy apologized publicly Saturday for its role in the Tuskegee syphilis study, in which researchers let hundreds of Black men die of the disease in Alabama in the 1930s. Ever since the trials, the Milbank Memorial Fund paid for funeral expenses for the deceased, the Associated Press reported. Many Black Americans still fear government health care—a phenomenon known as the Tuskegee effect. “The upshot of this was real harm,” fund president Christopher F. Koller told The Associated Press. “It was one more example of ways that men in the study were deceived. And we are dealing as individuals, as a region, as a country, with the impact of that deceit.” Lillie Tyson Head, whose father was a part of the study, appreciated the apology: “It’s really something that could be used as an example of how apologies can be powerful in making reparations and restorative justice be real,” Head said.