The organization that made funeral payments to families of Black men killed in the infamous Tuskegee study that lasted about 40 years, has issued an apology decades after the study ended.

Over the weekend, the New York-based fund made an apology to descendants of the victims used in the study.

It isn’t the first apology over the controversial study which ended nearly 50 years ago after the experiments became public knowledge. Former President Bill Clinton also issued an apology during his administration.

Researchers for the federal government knowingly allowed hundreds of Black men in Alabama die of syphilis so that the disease could be studied. The experiments started in the 1930s and lasted nearly 40 years.

The families of the deceased men typically received payments under $100 to cover funeral expenses.

During the pandemic when the federal government announced the development of Covid-19 vaccines, many people, including Blacks, pointed to the Tuskegee experiment as an example of why they were hesitant to trust U.S. health officials.

More about the Tuskegee experiment and apology can be found here.