FOSTER FACES NEW CRITICISM

A physician and former colleague of Dr. Henry Foster today accused the surgeon general nominee of knowing about -- and endorsing -- an infamous 1969 government study that purposely left black men with syphilis untreated. The White House, which had dismissed as extremist the same accusation from anti-abortion groups, said the doctor's remarks "are all inconsistent with the facts." Dr. Luther McRae, former president of the Macon County (Ala.) Medical Society, said he'd testify under oath that Foster was told about the U.S. Public Health Service's Tuskegee project during a 1969 meeting. McRae says he remembers Foster, then the society's vice president, "sat two chairs away from me to my left" and made no comment. The doctors endorsed continuation of the study by consensus, McRae says, though no written record of the vote or a list of those who attended the meeting apparently exists.