Carly Gallagher Pens First Place Project on Infamous Study

Carly Gallagher chose to tackle and research one of the most infamous episodes of United States government disease research. The teenager won first place in the historical paper category in this year’s National History Day contest at Huntington High School for her project titled Tuskegee’s Controversial Syphilis Study: How the Tuskegee Syphilis Study has Shaped Discussions of Medical Ethics and Civil Rights Throughout History.”

“I went about finding my topic when I first learned this year’s theme was ‘Rights and Responsibilities in History,’” Ms. Gallagher said. “I knew the Tuskegee case would hit both theme points and I was able to expand easily into the experiment. There were so many subtopics to the case that really made my piece strong. In conducting research, I touched upon the long and short term effects, as well as the time period and economic effects that lead to the proliferation of this case.”

The 40 year Tuskegee experiment started in 1932 when there was no known cure for the contagious venereal disease known as syphilis. “After being recruited by the promise of free medical care, 600 African American men in Macon County, Alabama were enrolled in the project, which aimed to study the full progression of the disease,” according the History Channel website. “The participants were primarily sharecroppers and many had never before visited a doctor. Doctors from the U.S. Public Health Service, which was running the study, informed the participants—399 men with latent syphilis and a control group of 201 others who were free of the disease—they were being treated for bad blood, a term commonly used in the area at the time to refer to a variety of ailments. The men were monitored by health workers but only given placebos such as aspirin and mineral supplements, despite the fact that penicillin became the recommended treatment for syphilis in 1947, some 15 years into the study. PHS researchers convinced local physicians in Macon County not to treat the participants, and instead, research was done at the Tuskegee Institute. In order to track the disease’s full progression, researchers provided no effective care as the men died, went blind or insane or experienced other severe health problems due to their untreated syphilis.”

By the time the study and how it was being conducted had been exposed to the public in 1972, 28 men had died from syphilis, 100 others died from complications of the disease and 40 spouses had been diagnosed with it. The disease had also been passed along to 19 children of the infected men at birth.

“The project took about two months including conducting research and about two weeks writing,” Ms. Gallagher said. “Though, there wasn’t one time where I stopped and didn’t want to continue. This topic truly amazes me and I was grateful for the opportunity to shed light upon its impurities.”

Ms. Gallagher said she has “a liking for social studies,” although she plans study pediatrics in preparation for a career as either a pediatrician or physician assistant.

“Huntington has taught me great values that I carry with myself every day and it has offered me amazing people who have helped me every step of the way,” Ms. Gallagher said. “Learning to stay motivated and to advocate for myself were my two biggest strengths and I feel that with those qualities, one can outperform their weaknesses, as I did so myself.”