The Tuskegee Experiment, which Reverend Jeremiah Wright brought into the national discourse, was a federally funded clinical study which tested the affects of syphilis on 399 poor, mostly illiterate black men. The experiment took place in Tuskegee, Alabama and lasted from 1932 to 1972. Only 65 years later, was the tragedy acknowledged, when President Bill Clinton apologized for the experiment. Those who enrolled in the study did not give informed consent and were not told that they had syphilis. These people were, in fact, denied medical treatment, even when penicillin became the drug of choice for syphilis in 1947. They were, however, promised free medical treatment, rides to the clinic, meals and burial insurance in case of death.
After the truth about Tuskegee came out in in 1972, Congress passed The Tuskegee Health Benefit Program that provides comprehensive lifetime medical and health benefits to the affected widows and offspring of study participants.
