By: Briyana Targete
The U.S. must overcome systemic racism and collective trauma to vaccinate
African Americans are four times more likely to get the coronavirus and three times more likely to die from it, so most are eager to receive the vaccine, right? Unfortunately, this is not the case. In fact, due to systemic racism in the government and a history of being mistreated by the medical community, it is only natural that black Americans are reluctant to receive a government-made vaccine. The government and the medical community should strive to regain the trust of black patients in order to achieve complete vaccination and foster a harmonious and welcoming future.
The medical community has treated black Americans unjustly for as long as they have interacted. During the period of slave ownership, slave owners would buy black people and use them as test subjects for medical experiments typically based on loose assumptions or curiosity. Southern medical journals have revealed that black people were often found on dissecting tables in colleges and universities. Testing on slaves was only the beginning of the inhumane experimentations. The infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiments play a massive role in African American vaccine hesitancy. In Macon County, Alabama, over 399 black men with syphilis were promised treatment that they never received, as part of a study. Many of the men died, went blind, or developed severe health issues due to a false promise of a cure. These cruel doctors took advantage of ill men for their own gain, which should be widely recognized as barbaric. These experiments were deemed unethical in 1940 when penicillin became the recommended drug for syphilis, but researchers never offered it to the patients.
Elevn years later, another practice of involuntary medicine occurred on an African American woman. In 1951 Henrietta Lacks had cancer cells unknowingly taken from her body and used in research. Lacks’ cells led to a cancer treatment that was considered one of the best of the time. However, though her cells helped cancer research advance, Lack was never financially compensated. To make matters worse, Johns Hopkins University released a statement in 2017 denying they had profited from her cells.
Between the Tuskegee experiment, what happened to Henrietta Lacks, and the government’s consistent abuse of its power against black Americans, there is an evident reason why black people distrust the medical community. The question is: what can we do to change that?
To achieve complete vaccination, we must base our decisions on scientific facts, not fear. The coronavirus has disproportionately affected black people, so the vaccine must be distributed in their communities promptly and efficiently. Even though the medical community has wronged African Americans before, the vaccine is safe based on trustworthy data and evidence. One way the government could convince black Americans to receive the vaccine is to make it more accessible for them. Large and fast-paced vaccination sites are often found in predominantly white areas, and they are much less common in primarily black neighborhoods. Another way to assure black Americans of the vaccine’s safety is to have doctors of color advocate for it and administer it to them. These doctors could reassure their safety and ensure just treatment. Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, a 34-year-old African American woman, was at the forefront of the Moderna vaccine’s creation and development, so highlighting her role could persuade more patients to take the vaccine.
Lastly, the lack of official public statements on historic mistreatment has also harmed the cause. If doctors and government officials would like to gain trust, they must address what they did wrong in the past and promise a brighter future. Earning the trust of patients is vital. Doctors will have to prove that they have changed and apologize for the discriminatory practices within medicine in order to move into a positive future.
Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, a key developer of the Moderna vaccine
A patient during the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment
