When Black people are wary of vaccine, it's important to listen and understand why (opi... - 0 views
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But many Black Americans have expressed reluctance to take the vaccine, a wariness some attribute to the enduring legacy of the egregious Tuskegee syphilis study.
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Both expose the depth of structural discrimination in the United States. Both remind us to listen and hear patients when they express distrust or reluctance about medical treatment.
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It recruited Black men in Macon County, Alabama, who had already contracted syphilis. The men were told they would be treated for syphilis, but the actual purpose of the study was to learn whether untreated syphilis progressed differently in Black people compared with White people.
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The federal government never intended to provide treatment, and though penicillin became widely available in 1943, the men were not treated. At least 28 and perhaps up to 100 men died from syphilis or its complications by the time the study was halted in 1972. Hundreds went on to infect their wives, some of whom then transmitted the disease to their children.
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Second, the federal government knowingly withheld treatment for 40 years from the same citizens it was supposed to protect.
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First, the study had been developed to test the repulsive idea that Black people are biologically different than White people. This idea -- suggesting Black people are somehow less than human -- has powerful echoes in medical training and practice today.
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In an August essay about Covid-19 treatment written for the California Health Care Foundation, Dr. Vanessa Grubbs, a nephrologist, noted, "No available data suggest such implicit bias is happening on a large scale and resulting in worse outcomes. But the lack of data is less a sign that the problem does not exist than a reflection of what data we choose not to gather."
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There have been numerous reports of Black people being turned away at emergency departments, sent home without having been examined or treated and later dying of the virus
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We live in a country organized around structural racism. This means Black Americans are less likely to receive the health care we deserve. We are more likely to live in neighborhoods with poor air quality and fewer outlets to purchase healthy food. We are more likely to work in low-paying "essential" jobs that put us more at risk for contracting Covid-19.
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Because the vaccine came to market so quickly, we do not have long-term safety studies, and there are still many unanswered questions.
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One of the lasting lessons of Tuskegee is that denying medical care is among the biggest breaches of trust between citizens and their governments. We must ensure that marginalized groups like Black, Indigenous and people of color, immigrants, disabled people and people in prison can receive this vaccine. We must also ensure people are allowed to ask questions to make informed and uncoerced decisions about their health care.