The launch of the first COVID-19 vaccine approved this week raises questions about when game-changing inoculations will be ready for everyday Americans.
But for communities of color, especially black communities, which have a deep distrust of the government, the question is whether they will adopt the vaccine.
Distrust is not surprising.
From the early to mid-20th century, tens of thousands of non-white women were sterilized by the government.
For four decades, the government ran what is known as the Tuskegee syphilis study in the deep south exclusively on black men. The researchers never received informed consent from participants nor did they offer treatment for the disease even after penicillin became the main form of treatment for syphilis. The experiment did not stop until 1972.
In 1951, doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore extracted tissue samples without the consent of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who was being treated for cervical cancer. Part of the tissue sample became the first immortalized human cell line and is still widely used in cancer research.
All of these things have happened over the last 100 years and have not been easily forgotten.
“It simply came to our notice then [to] Blacks do not trust the vaccine. No, blacks don’t trust whites … we don’t trust whites won’t they wouldn’t endanger our lives, ”LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, said Thursday during a Senate press briefing of runoff in Georgia.
The impasse is problematic, as it is well documented that the pandemic has affected people of color the most.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, blacks in the United States are 3.7 times more likely to be hospitalized and 2.8 times more likely to die than whites. Native Americans and Latinos are hospitalized approximately four times the rate of white people due to COVID-19 and are more than 2.5 times more likely to die.
That’s why organizations like the NAACP are trying to actively engage and educate black communities about the virus and vaccines.
Last week, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization held a town hall meeting that featured a handful of high-level black figures, including Marcella Nunez-Smith
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He changed the mind of Yvonne Robinson Horton, 71, of Bolton, Miss.
“I had almost 70% certainty that I wouldn’t take it,” he told Horton on Friday, a retired teacher who taught for 30 years in Magnolia state. “I know of Tuskegee. I know of these women who sterilized. … I read about Henrietta Lacks “.
“I’m from Bolton, Mississippi. We have a strong distrust of the government, at least, as many blacks do. … They taught us that, ”he said.
What changed his mind, Horton said, were the words of Corbett, who has been praised Anthony Fauci
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“She was so compassionate that I started listening to what she and other people were saying,” Horton explained. “I’m trying to gather all this information and process it, but I think I’m more inclined to take it now than I am.”
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson, whom Horton knows personally, told The Hill that he sent her a text message about her mood swings. Johnson stressed the importance of black voices presenting information about vaccines to black communities.
“The messenger is as important as the message,” Johnson said. “We will be working very hard to build a bank of strong messengers. … It may not be the same messenger for all communities in the African American population because we are not a monolith, but … people tend to listen to individuals with whom they can more easily identify. “
Some of the federal government health agencies seem to understand that.
In September, NIH created the Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities to address virus misinformation and find trusted community partners and leaders to educate their communities on accurate information about the pandemic.
Lisa Cooper, co-chair of the CEAL steering committee and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, echoed Johnson, saying it was crucial to find the best strategy to communicate effectively with different communities across the country.
“There is a needs assessment component that understands what people fear and worry about [and] The questions are and then the piece of the communication campaign, which is basically developing different messages for different audiences, testing them and seeing which ones seem to be … more effective, ”Cooper said.
Part of the committee’s work has focused on informing black communities how the vaccination process is different from past experiences. For example, CEAL encouraged blacks to participate in vaccine clinical trials, which Corbett also encouraged.
“It builds credibility,” the Rev. Kendrick E. Curry, another co-chair of the steering committee, told The Hill. “He says we’ve not only been in development … we’re scientists, we’re doctors, we’re all the things we need. This is a very different situation.”
Curry, who heads the Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church Congregation in Washington, DC, added that the slow spread has had a positive impact.
“At first … probably 90 percent of the people I spoke to said, ‘Absolutely not [to getting the vaccine]. “Now, that figure will probably drop by about 50%.” Curry’s estimate is verified by a recent study by the Pew Research Center, in which 42% of black adults surveyed said they would get the vaccine.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services (which includes NIH) told The Hill earlier this week that it would soon launch a public service campaign on vaccines that would include “tailor-made messages for disproportionately affected groups and areas of the country. with the highest infection rates ”.
Cooper and Curry mentioned that community messengers, such as religious leaders, could play a key role in getting a bigger purchase. On a more macro level, Cooper said it was also important to highlight blacks like Corbett, who has been working on the front lines to fight the pandemic, as well as nationally recognized figures.
“I think sports figures will be really important; I think artists will be important; I think that anyone who is a public figure well seen by many people has an important role to play, ”said Cooper.
The role that entities such as celebrities, athletes and professional sports leagues will play is still unclear, although the NBA, which has been a leader in racial justice issues this year, hinted on Friday about the involvement of some sort.
In a statement, NBA spokesman Mike Bass told The Hill, “As we have done recently and historically, the NBA will work collaboratively with players and other members of the NBA family to support communications. important public safety and health issues, including coordination with public health officials. “