My Dad graduated from Tuskegee in the late 1960s, and he often recounted the story of the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, a government-funded medical study that went on for forty years and allowed nearly 400 Black men to needlessly die before being exposed. But that does not change the fundamental history and generational fallout. Even Black medical professionals were not immune to this distrust.įortunately, African Americans are resilient survivors, so eventually most chose to receive the vaccine.
Growing up, I’d listened as a beloved aunt of mine, a registered nurse for nearly forty years, professed her dislike of hospitals. Would they trust that the government was being honest about the safety of the vaccine? Although I had read the studies and knew the vaccine was safe, I understood the history of medical racism in the United States and the distrust it had fostered among many African Americans. When Covid-19 vaccines were released in early 2021, I worried about folks in African American communities.
0 kommentar(er)
