Will a presidential public apology be needed for HIV/AIDS care in the future?(Editorial)

The president of the United States has recently apologized for the Tuskegee experiments in a public forum. These experiments began in 1932 under the direction of the United States Public Health Service in Tuskegee, Alabama--a small, rural town--to study the natural course of syphilis in the adult African American male. African American men in the study were followed for a number of years and were periodically examined but did not receive treatment for syphilis even though penicillin had been determined to be effective against syphilis. These men either were not informed about the study's purposes and procedures or not aware that they were research subjects and believed that they were receiving treatment. It was not until 1972, when an account of this study was published in the Washington Star, …