Buxtun, then a 28-year-old social worker and
epidemiologist in San Francisco, was hired by the Public Health Service in December 1965 to interview patients with sexually transmitted diseases. In the course of his duties, he learned of the
Tuskegee Experiment from co-workers. He later said, "I didn't want to believe it. This was the Public Health Service. We didn't do things like that." In 1972, Buxtun
leaked information on the Tuskegee experiment to
Jean Heller of the
Associated Press. It first appeared in the
Washington Star. Heller's story exposing the experiment was published on July 25, 1972; It became front-page news in
The New York Times the following day. Senator
Ted Kennedy called Congressional hearings, at which Buxtun and officials from the U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare testified. The experiment was terminated shortly afterwards. In 1997, President
Bill Clinton invited surviving Tuskegee study subjects to the
White House, where he offered a formal apology and described the government's actions over four decades as "shameful" and "clearly racist". On November 4, 2019, Buxtun was inducted as an honorary member of
Delta Omega, the
honorary society in public health. ==Personal life==