Photo: Rockefeller Medicine Men

A federal judge has approved a $1 billion lawsuit against the Rockefeller Foundation that seeks restitution for victims who were intentionally infected with syphilis during government experiments.

Hundreds of Guatemalans were reportedly infected with syphilis during the experiment, which were designed to test the ability of penicillin to treat sexually transmitted diseases.

The lawsuit was pending and waiting in limbo for the past four years until it was approved by U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in January and also seeks restitution from Johns Hopkins University and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co for assisting the Rockefeller experiment.

The Rockefeller victims in the experiments were mainly poor children, orphans, patients from mental hospitals and inmates.

The horrific studies remained shrouded in secrecy until 2010 when Dr. Susan Reverby of Wellesley College in Massachusetts uncovered details of the government-funded experiment, forcing a formal apology from then President Barack Obama.

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