Tuskegee airman leading by example
He gets vaccine, hopes to encourage Blacks
“It is an earned mistrust … (among) the African American community with well-documented harms that have both been communicated through stories over generations but also are part of the lived experience for African Americans as it relates to bias in the health care system.”
PORT CLINTON - Even at the age of 96, getting the COVID-19 vaccine was a quick and painless process for Port Clinton resident and American war hero Harold Brown.
Brown, a former Tuskegee Airman and retired lieutenant colonel, received the vaccine at Port Clinton’s Magruder Hospital on Thursday morning and is strongly encouraging anyone with the opportunity to follow suit.
For Brown, the decision to get the vaccine was an easy one when considering the number of deaths that the novel coronavirus has caused thus far in the U.S.
“All we have to do is look at the numbers — with 400,000-plus people dying over the past year, I certainly don’t need any more motivation than that,” he said.
Brown pointed out that the COVID-19 has been particularly “devastating” for older Americans.
According to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 80% of COVID-19 deaths in the United States occurred among those 65 and older. Nearly a third of all U.S. coronavirus deaths occurred among those 85 and older.
While Brown said he has been fortunate to have remained in good health at this stage in his life, even amid a pandemic, he said every year he has left is “very precious” to him.
“I realized, ‘Hey, if you want to stick around to see your next birthday, you better go down and get yourself vaccinated,’” he said.
Brown is also hoping his example encourages members of Black communities to get vaccinated.
A recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 35% of Black people were hesitant to receive the vaccine.
Dr. Scott Frank, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
A total of 71% of the Black respondents in the Kaiser study cited worries about side effects, while 48% reported not trusting vaccinations more generally.
Half of the respondents expressed concern that they would become infected with COVID-19 as a result of receiving the inoculation, despite the fact that the vaccine does not contain a live virus.
By comparison, 71% of the general U.S. population said they were open to receiving the vaccine, according to the same study.
As one public health expert noted in a recent interview with the Akron Beacon Journal, vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans is rooted in specific historical and lived experiences, even as misinformation, conspiracy theories and mixed messaging have proliferated and contributed to vaccine fears across racial lines.
“There’s a difference between science denial and anti-vaxxers and the phenomenon we’re seeing in the African American community,” said Dr. Scott Frank, a family medicine doctor and director of the Master of Public Health Program at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland.
“It is an earned mistrust … (among) the African American community with well-documented harms that have both been communicated through stories over generations but also are part of the lived experience for African Americans as it relates to bias in the health care system,” Scott said.
Brown referenced a historical example that contributed to the eroded trust between the health care industry and Black Americans, the infamous Tuskegee Experiment.
In 1932, government scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Public Health Service lured hundreds of poor Black men — many of whom were infected with syphilis — into unknowingly participating in a natural history study on the effects of untreated syphilis.
That unethical, government-sponsored syphilis study took place in Tuskegee, Alabama, the same city where the Tuskegee Airmen were trained in the early 1940s.
“People remember those kinds of things,” Brown said of the Tuskegee Experiment. “A lot of people think, ‘Oh boy, what’s the good ol’ government up to now? They want to give me a vaccine? Is it safe?’”
While Brown stressed that they have every right to ask those questions, all he can do is encourage others through his own example that the COVID-19 vaccine can be trusted.
He and his wife, Marsha Bordner, both touted their treatment by the staff at Magruder Hospital early Thursday morning.
“It was all hands on deck,” Bordner said.
Even hours after receiving the injection in his arm, Brown said he has not experienced any negative side effects.
“It’s easy, the needles are nice and sharp, you feel no pain, it only takes a few minutes and now you’re safe — can’t beat a deal like that,” he said. jstinchcom@gannett.com 419-680-4897
Twitter: @JONDBN