Administration opposes syphilis study museum

The Trump administration opposes a bid to use unclaimed money from a legal settlement over the government’s infamous Tuskegee syphilis study to fund a museum honoring victims of the research project.

The Justice Department argued in court documents recently that providing the money to the Tuskegee Human and Civil Rights Multicultural Center would violate an agreement reached in 1975 to settle a class-action lawsuit. For the study, hundreds of black men suffering from the sexually transmitted disease were allowed to go untreated for decades so doctors could analyze the progression of the illness.

The government said that it “does not intend in any way to justify, condone, or defend the Tuskegee Syphilis Study,” but allowing remaining money from a $9 million settlement to be used for the museum would violate the settlement’s original provision that any left over money go back to the government.