Black Americans are the most hesitant to get virus vaccine
Black Americans distrust the government so much they’re not participating in large numbers in COVID-19 clinical trials, and many say they won’t get a COVID-19 vaccine – at least not until many others get it.
Although the first two large clinical trials of candidate vaccines have managed to include about 3,000 Black participants each, it hasn’t been easy. Later trials might have even more trouble.
Polls show that among racial and ethnic groups, Black Americans are the most hesitant to get a vaccine once one becomes available, and their skepticism is rising fast. In one September survey, only 32% of Black adults said they would get a vaccine, down from 54% in May.
In a recent focus group run by a foundation that supports the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Black participants brought up systemic racism for their hesitancy and cited the government-backed Tuskegee Syphilis Study, in which Black men were told they were getting free medical care but instead were denied therapy for their syphilis for decades.
“I firmly believe that this is another Tuskegee Experiment,” one focus group member said.
“We are the ones who are the guinea pigs for the rich,” another said.
Without adequate Black and Hispanic participation in clinical trials, it won’t be clear whether the vaccine will be safe and effective for them. Although there are no significant genetic distinctions by race or ethnicity, people of color may react differently to a vaccine because of their different lived experiences, experts say.
And if people don’t get vaccinated, they will remain vulnerable to the virus, which has ravaged communities of color in particular. Black Americans are 21⁄ times more likely to contract
COVID-19, nearly five times as likely to be hospitalized with it and twice as likely to die from it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A vaccine, which is likely to be ready early next year, is considered the best hope for ending the pandemic, but if not enough Americans will get it, then months of effort and $10 billion in taxpayer funding may be wasted.
To prevent that from happening, the government needs to make a concerted effort to address the concerns of people of color, said Dr. Michelle Williams, dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in an interview with Dr. Howard Bauchner, editor-in-chief of JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“We have to really get to a place where we can reckon with past wrongs and we effectively communicate to this community,” she said.
Alexandre White, a historian of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said mistrust needs to be addressed urgently. “We’re seeing a deeply uncoordinated strategy. We’re not seeing a nationally coordinated strategy,” he said.
America has a terrible history of medical experimentation on Black Americans, including but not limited to Tuskegee, White said. “The legacies of experimentation and racism date back to the origins of this country and are still quite fresh,” he said.
The country’s first medical colleges purchased enslaved men to dig up freshly buried bodies from Black cemeteries to use for experiments and autopsies, he said.
Dr. James Marion Sims, often considered the “father of American gynecology,” used enslaved women as patients to test new gynecological methods without providing them any anesthesia. And risk of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases was used historically to justify segregation, White said.
Black Americans often learn this history at an early age, he said, while white people aren’t usually taught about it at all. “At his moment, we’re seeing the horrors of the past and even more recent experiences come home to roost,” he said.
The National Medical Association, which represents African American physicians and patients, has established a task force to review the findings of vaccine trials “to help provide a bridge of communications to the Black community,” said Dr. Leon McDougle, the association’s president. “Once a safe and effective vaccine is approved, we’d like to be in agreement with that.”
Clear communication and “collaborative engagement” can help overcome vaccine hesitancy, said White, the Johns Hopkins medical historian.
“But these steps need to be taken urgently,” he said. “I don’t think it’s too late, but I think we’re running out of time.”
Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.