"We are outraged that such reprehensible research could have occurred under the guise of public health," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Friday . (emphasis mine)

What they meant to say was that the government used the wrong guise back in the day; if they just said something like "national security" or "to stop the turrists" or "for the children!!!", it would have been alright that the U.S. government intentionally infected people with STD's.  John Q Public would surely give the government a free pass since that's all some mindless government peon has to say for things like murder, torture, rape, sport killings, indefinite detention, ordering the killing of U.S. citizens etc. to be just fine and dandy. 

At the time the experiment on the brown people began, the government had been observing black people with syphilis for about 14 years, while withholding treatment they knew could cure the disease.  Apparently, people weren't getting sick fast enough, so Uncle Sam speed up the process.

This isn't the first time (or second, or third, etc.) that the government has chosen to experiment with people lives.  There's plenty of 'studies ' that have been done on unknowing populations.  But of course, this kind of thing doesn't happen in this day and age, right? Right?

Oh, I forgot, it's for 'national security', so it's okay.