The legacy of racism in America manifests in many cruel ways. And sometimes the cruelty is replete with irony. Case in point is the racist way the US government treated Blacks for its infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Because this has Blacks now fearing its Covid vaccine, which could save their lives.
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the African American Male is the longest nontherapeutic experiment on human beings in medical history. … Begun in 1932 by the United States Public Health Service (USPHS), the study was purportedly designed to determine the natural course of untreated latent syphilis in some 400 African American men in Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama. …
The subjects were recruited with misleading promises of ‘special free treatment,’ which were actually spinal taps done without anesthesia to study the neurological effects of syphilis, and they were enrolled without their informed consent.
(The New Social Worker, Fall 2003, Vol. 10, No. 4)
What’s more, no less a person than Rep. James Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, said on MSNBC this week that the government used Blacks as guinea pigs in other, less notorious experiments. Perhaps you saw Oprah Winfrey dramatize another infamous case in her critically acclaimed movie The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
But Clyburn’s unassailable point is that Blacks have good reasons to be skeptical about the truth and efficacy of any vaccine the US government administers. This, especially while the government is headed by an overtly racist president who made so much ado about developing it at warp(ed) speed.
Except that there’s this further irony: The principal government scientist behind the development of this vaccine is Black. And, that this scientist is also a woman can only enhance credibility and trustworthiness among Blacks.
This is why no less a person than Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, is spearheading a PR campaign to let Blacks know that one of their own is behind this vaccination drive.
‘The very vaccine that’s one of the two that has absolutely exquisite levels — 94 to 95% efficacy against clinical disease and almost 100% efficacy against serious disease that are shown to be clearly safe — that vaccine was actually developed in my institute’s vaccine research center by a team of scientists led by Dr. Barney Graham and his close colleague, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, or Kizzy Corbett,’ Fauci said. …
But skepticism among some people of color, especially Black Americans, remains high.
A study released by the COVID Collaborative, the NAACP and UnidosUS found that only 14% of Black Americans trust that a vaccine will be safe and 18% trust it will be effective.
(CNN, December 10, 2020)
Which brings me to the irony of ironies. Because, while Blacks are the least likely of all races to take this vaccine, they are the most likely to die from Covid-19; in fact, nearly three times more likely than whites. My people, we always seem to end up getting screwed – even if that means screwing ourselves.
But hey, kudos to Dr. Corbett. I just hope she gets more credit for developing the vaccine than for being the Black face the government used to get Blacks to take it. As it happens, with all due respect to Dr. Fauci, I began hailing her in my homage to pioneering women earlier this year in “No Surprise: Earth Day Sees Women Leaders Doing Best Job in Combating Covid-19,” April 22, 2020.
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