In February of 1994 at the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library in Charlottesville, VA, a symposium was held entitled "Doing Bad in the Name of Good?: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study and Its Legacy." Resulting from this gathering was the creation of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study Legacy Committee which met for the first time on January 18-19, 1996.
The committee had two goals; (1) to persuade President Clinton to apologize on behalf of the government for the atrocities of the study and (2) to develop a strategy to address the damages of the study to the psyche of African-Americans and others about the ethical behavior of government-led research; rebuilding the reputation of Tuskegee through public education about the study, developing a clearinghouse on the ethics of scientific research and scholarship and assembling training programs for health care providers.
After intensive discussions, the Committee's final report in May of 1996 urged President Clinton to apologize for the emotional, medical, research and psychological damage of the study. On May 16th at a White House ceremony attended by the men, members of the Legacy Committee and others representing the medical and research communities, the apology was delivered to the surviving participants of the study and families of the deceased.
Committee Members Included:
Chairman, Macon County Health Care Authority
Administrator, Macon County Health Care Authority
- Dr. James A. Ferguson (now deceased)
Dean, School of Veterinary Medicine
Tuskegee University
- Dr. John C. Fletcher, co-chair
Director, Center for Biomedical Ethics
Cornfield Professor of Religious Studies
University of Virginia
- Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble, chair
former Associate Professor of History of Medicine and Family Medicine
University of Wisconsin Medical School
(now Director of the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care)
Assistant Professor
University of Alabama
Director, Division of Minority Health
Alabama Department of Public Health
Epidemiologist
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Professor of History
University of Houston
Professor
Department of Behavioral Sciences and Community Health
School of Dental Medicine
University of Connecticut Health Center
- Ms. Joan Echtenkamp Klein
Assistant Director for Historical Collections and Services
Health Sciences Library
University of Virginia Health System
Luella LaMer Professor for Women's Studies
Wellesley College
Associate Director for Minority Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Program Analyst
Minority Health Professions Foundation