Disease is the threat

Bronx: As a Black American, I’d like to enlighten those in the Black community who fear the vaccine because of the government’s past experimentation on Black subjects in the Tuskegee Experiment. Here are the facts: The Tuskegee Experiment involved 600 Black men, 399 who had syphilis and 201 who were disease-free. In 1947, when penicillin was available, the government denied treatment to the infected as part of the experiment. The Tuskegee Experiment had nothing to do with vaccines. It actually involved withholding giving an injection of life-saving penicillin. The irony of many in the Black community refusing the life-saving vaccine is that they are doing the same thing the government did in the study — you are withholding the vaccine that could save your life. Not smart!

Gilbert M. Lane