CITY OF MIDDLETON PROCLAMATION
Celebrating February as Black History Month in Middleton

Whereas, America celebrates “Black Health and Wellness” and takes a look at how healthcare has often underserved the African-American community; and

Whereas, The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was a study conducted from the 1930-‘70s with 400 African American men with syphilis to observe the effects of the disease when untreated. Participants were offered free medical care, but not informed nor treated for the disease; a violation of ethical standards and greatly increased distrust in medical science.

Whereas, The American health care system is beset with inequalities that have a disproportionate impact on people of color and other marginalized groups. These inequalities contribute to gaps in health insurance coverage, uneven access to services, and poorer health outcomes among certain populations.

Whereas, Today, African American women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women here in the United States.

Whereas, As the COVID-19 pandemic has recently shown, a widespread disparity of access to quality healthcare negatively impacts outcomes for blacks and other minorities.

Whereas, Henrietta Lacks, born in 1920, was an African American mother diagnosed with an unusually aggressive form of cervical cancer and the age of 31. The treating physician shared the cells with researchers and her cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line and one of the most important cell lines in medical research as they are the first human cells to survive and thrive outside the body in a test tube. She was never compensated for the use of her cells. These cells were used for research from polio in the 1950s to the coronavirus today and in more than 100,000 scientific publications in between on a range of topics including cancer, cell biology, genetics, and infectious diseases.

Now, therefore, the Middleton Common Council and I as Mayor honor African-Americans’ black health and wellness, and we urge our fellow residents to learn and celebrate Black History month in our community.

This proclamation was adopted at a regular meeting of the Middleton Common Council on the 18th day of January, 2022.

ATTEST:

_______________________ _______________________
Gurdip Brar, Mayor Lorie J. Burns, City Clerk




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7426 Hubbard Ave, Middleton, WI 53562
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