Request for Presidential apology/investigation for Rosenwald Fund Study #FAMILYLOVEMATTERS

In 1929, the United States Public Health Service (PHS) asked Julius Rosenwald to jointly fund a project dealing with syphilis in the black population in the American South. Rosenwald was a friend of Booker T. Washington, and was not aware of the pervasive nature of the study when he accepted their request. The project became known as the Rosenwald Fund Study (RFS), the precursor to the PHS-conducted Tuskegee and Guatemala Studies. Six states (MS, GA, NC, VA, AL, & TN) and approximately 40,000 blacks of all ages and sexes were tested, and the PHS deceptively sought participation from black clergy and black school superintendents to garner support for the project. Wassermann blood tests, not specific for syphilis, were used to diagnose subjects, and had intolerably high false positive rates linked to unrelated illnesses, such as pellagra, malaria, tuberculosis, and rheumatism. Tennessee deviated from other states and conducted the study on family units. Blacks cooperated because it was the first time many received what they perceived as government-sponsored healthcare. The PHS also selected/studied a group of white, syphilitic males, and they received preferential treatment. Heavy toxic metals (mercury, arsenic, and bismuth) were used on black subjects (prior to the League of Nations/World Health Organization implementing a standardized treatment method). Rural blacks were treated in fields and in the basement of the University of Virginia Medical Center, while syphilitic whites received financial aid and preferential treatment in Hot Springs, Arkansas from Dr. O.C Wenger, PHS Director of Venereal Disease.
When the RFS allegedly ended in 1932, the federal government salvaged the Macon County, Alabama Study, and it became known as the infamous unethical 40-year Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The PHS also continued to conduct unethical research on southern blacks, most notably in Tennessee and Mississippi. Toxic-metal treatments were given to blacks in a group of Western Tennessee counties due to the study’s distinct and unique family-unit nature. Erroneous online documents reveal the RFS was conducted in one county in each of the six states. The RFS treated blacks in five counties within the state of Mississippi alone, to include a Prenatal Syphilis Control Project in Holmes County, MS. The long-term effects of these treatments cannot be understated. According to the Minamata Convention on Mercury, mercury adversely effects women, children, and through them future generations. The RFS was conducted during the Great Migration when millions of Blacks in the American South migrated to various parts of the region, presumably with heavy metal poisoning.
My family migrated from Western Tennessee with a hereditary illness, presumably linked to the RFS and heavy metal poisoning. I’ve been diligently seeking a presidential apology and investigation for the RFS since 2011, but to no avail. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) claims the RFS was not an experimental research study and mercury does not have a congenital effect. In 2015, the United Nations Environmental Program determined the RFS was a violation of civil and human rights. I provided the CDC with documented proof from numerous archives that it was an experiment and in 2019 the Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry acknowledged mercury’s congenital effect, then blatantly denied the RFS existed. Precedents for PHS-conducted studies have been established; President Clinton apologized in 1997 for the unethical Tuskegee Study and President Obama apologized for the Guatemala Inoculation Study and initiated an investigation on October 1, 2010.
During my 13 years of research, I have asked for the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate this issue, to be transparent in their efforts and findings, and to consider offering our country a presidential apology and investigation for the RFS since 2011. To date, my request has been unresolved. My request has come full circle. I sent the initial request to the White House in 2011 during the Obama Administration. The Trump Administration denied the apology/investigation, then signed the Julius Rosenwald and Rosenwald Schools Act of 2020. My current request has been with the Biden Administration since Feb 2023.
President Biden ran on a campaign promise to heal the soul of America. Victims and descendants of the RFS suffer from generational trauma and deserve healing and restorative justice. A presidential apology and investigation for the Rosenwald Fund Study is warranted and long overdue.