Color of Money
Karen Kotloff is the principal investigator for the Maryland clinical trial and head of Infectious Disease and Tropical Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Kotloff is keenly aware of the daunting tasks of getting a vaccine buy-in from Blacks. But it’s vital that trials have a good representation of minorities, she said.
“If we’re developing a vaccine, we want that vaccine to be effective and safe in people who are at the highest risk of getting infection and getting severe disease from infection,” Kotloff said. “And that’s why it’s so important for those groups to be well represented in the same distribution that they are represented in the epidemiology of the disease.”
Part of the comfort the Hrabowskis have in participating in the trial is the involvement of UMBC alumna Kizzmekia Corbett, who is now a viral immunologist at the Vaccine Research Center. Corbett is the scientific lead on the NIH team working to find a vaccine for the coronavirus.
Corbett, who graduated from UMBC in 2008, won a spot in the university’s prestigious Meyerhoff Scholars Program, which was co-founded by Freeman Hrabowski to increase diversity among science, technology, engineering and math fields.
“Growing up in Alabama and having known about the Tuskegee study for so many years, I’ve always known we needed more people of color, more Blacks in the field in the research, doing the medicine and the science,” Freeman Hrabowski said.
“Knowing her background, brilliance, and confidence in the vaccine trials spilled over into my willingness to give this a chance,” said Jacqueline Hrabowski. “Whenever I say anything to people about how we got to having a vaccine, I always mention Kizzmekia, this young Black woman who is involved.”
Corbett says she understands the misgivings the Black community has about the vaccine.
“When trust is taken away from an entire community of people, you certainly have to take your time with dismantling that mistrust and distrust,” she said. “It is going to take getting on calls with community leaders and faith leaders. It’s going to take people seeing pillars of the black community like the Hrabowskis enrolling in clinical trials.”
Blacks need the vaccine for their health and their wealth, Freeman Hrabowski said.
“At some point, when a vaccine is available, people should want to take it not just for themselves, but for their family members and friends,” he said. “Because if you are infected, you impact other people. Part of taking care of your family financially is making sure you’re healthy so you can go to work and pay the bills.”
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