(The Associated Press) -- The Tuskegee Syphilis Study has become a symbol of medical research gone awry.

In 1932, the United States Public Health Service began a study of poor, black men in Macon County, Ala., to learn more about syphilis.

Researchers told 600 black men - 399 with syphilis and 201 who did not have the disease - that they were being treated for "bad blood." In exchange for participating in the study, the men received free medical exams, meals and burial insurance.

Those with the disease were never told they had syphilis. And even after penicillin came into use in the mid-1940s, they were denied treatment. By the time news stories exposed the study in 1972, 28 men had died of syphilis, 100 others were dead of related complications, at least 40 wives had been infected and 19 children had contracted the disease at birth.

A lawsuit filed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the early 1970s ended in a settlement that gave more than $9 million to study participants. In the settlement, the federal government also agreed to give free medical and burial services to all living participants.

In 1974, Congress passed regulations requiring researchers to get informed consent from people taking part in studies conducted or funded by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The regulations also called for institutional review boards to approve studies involving human subjects.

In 1997, President Clinton apologized to survivors, saying the federal government had orchestrated a study that was "clearly racist." He acknowledged the research was "deeply, profoundly, morally wrong."

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