Past Errors - Future Perfect?

An Olympic champion who recently died admitted openly to using steroids.  He felt there was nothing wrong with using the enhancement drug of choice.
Many are saying he should be stripped of his medals and looked down upon in the sports community.
But that was then and this is now!
Laws and social mores cannot be retroactive.
We learn from our mistakes and hopefully change the laws for future generations.
Steroids were not outlawed back then because we had no idea how damaging they were.
My friend in LA died a few years ago after two years of attempting to get down to manageable levels of steroids - and he was under a doctors care!  Every time they lowered the dosage (Prednisone) he developed side effects that caused them to raise it back up until his body finally gave in.
When we look back in history and condemn or even condone acts of the past without using an eye toward the time line we are doing all involved a disservice.
The saying that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it is correct.  But if we change history or historical facts then what?
Understanding what happened in the past has to be taken within its context.
The holocaust was, is, and should be condemned as a terrible act of genocide and plain evil by at least the sane among us.  But if we go back further in time we will come across other such 'cleansing' acts that were not considered wrong by those in charge.  We know now that they were but...
As long as we amend our laws without emending our past records we will continue to evolve as a society.  If we cannot admit that certain practices in the past were wrong then we will not have the desire to change them.
Steroids were in common use!
Slavery existed!
Women could not vote!
Bush was President!
We all make mistakes but as long as we realize that they were mistakes we will be fine.