Why Some Black Americans are Skeptical of the COVID-19 Vaccine
By: Karly Jung
Associate Editor, Vol. 26
COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on communities of color.[1] Black, Hispanic, and Native American people are roughly three times more likely to die of COVID-19 compared to white people.[2] In some areas, these differences are further exacerbated. For example, in Washington, D.C., “Black residents make up roughly 46% of the population, but over 80% of virus deaths. In Chicago, Black residents died at six times the rate of white residents.”[3]
Despite the increased risks COVID-19 imposes on communities of color, Black Americans are the least likely to get vaccinated. New CDC figures reveal that 60% of those who received the first dose of a vaccine are White, and only 5.4% are Black.[4] According to a poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Black adults are also the most wary of the vaccine, citing concerns such as the newness of the vaccine.[5] Another poll by the Pew Research Center confirms this finding, showing that 42% of Black adults would consider taking the vaccine while 63% of Hispanic adults and 61% of white adults were open to the vaccine.[6]
Examining the historical medical abuse of Black Americans helps to explain the mistrust of the medical system in general and of the COVID-19 vaccine in particular. Carolyn Roberts, a history professor at Yale, explained how medical treatment aboard slave ships and plantations centered around terror and violence.[7] On top of abusive medical treatment, the American medical institutions subjected Black people to experimentation and exploitation.[8] Enslaved women were forced to participate in experimental reproductive procedures without anesthesia.[9] Black bodies were uprooted from graves for scientific study.[10]
The medical abuse endured long past emancipation. In 1932, The U.S. Public Health Service Study at Tuskegee commenced in order to track the damage syphilis does to the human body.[11] Researchers and medical professionals tricked Black participants into believing they were receiving free medical care.[12] Instead of receiving care, the participants were left untreated and unaware of their diagnosis.[13] Even after a cure for syphilis was discovered in the mid-1940s, none of the participants received such treatment.[14] As a result of this unethical, inhumane study, many died, lost their eyesight, and suffered other serious health repercussions.[15]
The case of Henrietta Lacks serves as another infamous example of exploitation of the Black body. Henrietta Lacks, who died of cervical cancer in 1951, sought medical attention at Johns Hopkins Hospital.[16] During an exam, a doctor took a sample of her cells without her knowledge of consent. Scientists kept these cells alive in labs in order to generate billions of dollars in pharmaceutical research and development.[17] For years, no one in Henrietta Lacks’ family was aware of the existence of these cells, nor were they financially compensated for the use of the cells for medical research.[18]
Black women were also sterilized without their knowledge. In 1961, a doctor gave Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights organizer, a hysterectomy without her knowledge or consent.[19] Sitting on a civil rights panel in 1964, Hamer estimated that about six out of ten Black women who went to the hospital during that time period were sterilized.[20]
From the founding of this nation, the medical institution has harmed and exploited Black people again and again. It takes no stretch of the imagination to see why enduring fear and anxiety surrounding the medical system has persisted.
However, Black Americans need not look back into the past to find fuel for their mistrust; experiences today suffice. The chair of the Biden-Harris COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force, Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, explained that “[m]any folks don’t have to look back to Tuskegee or Henrietta Lacks; they can look to an experience they or their family members have had interacting with the health care system this week, or this month, that left them feeling that perhaps there is bias in the system against them.”[21] According to a poll conducted in the fall of 2020, around “70% of Black Americans believe that people are treated unfairly based on race or ethnicity when they seek medical care. It’s a feeling born of unequal access to care and intensified by the pandemic, which is disproportionately ravaging Black lives both physically and economically.”[22] Scholar Harriet Washington states that because Black people are getting sicker, left untreated, or mistreated at the physician’s office, “people can come to this logical conclusion that bad things may happen at the doctor without ever needing to name-check Tuskegee.”[23]
To right the repeated wrongs and their persisting effects which have been highlighted by the pandemic, strides must be made in eradicating the racial inequity in medicine. Leon McDougle, MD, president of the National Medical Association and professor at the Ohio State University College of Medicine says that “[a]s a nation, we need to invest in Black serving institutions to offset disparities in health outcomes.”[24] University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Dorothy Roberts, founding director of the school’s Program on Race, Science & Society, further states that the community must focus on reforming medicine and science in a way that earns Black American’s trust.[25]
Dr. Reginald Eadie, president and CEO of Trinity Health of New England, works to address the mistrust of the health system for some. He has done a lot of outreach to the Black community to give presentations the development of the vaccine and to address their. His work has helped change minds. [26] If more programs like these are instituted, he says, “that vaccine hesitancy that communities of color are concerned about will begin to mitigate or disappear.”[27]
[1] See Saundra Young, Black Vaccine Hesitancy Rooted in Mistrust, Doubts, Web MD (Feb. 2, 2021), https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210202/black-vaccine-hesitancy-rooted-in-mistrust-doubts.
[2] Id.
[3] Zoe Christen Jones, Why some Black Americans are skeptical of a COVID-19 vaccine, CBS News (Dec. 11, 2020, 8:29 pm), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-vaccine-why-some-black-americans-skeptical/.
[4] Saundra Young, Black Vaccine Hesitancy Rooted in Mistrust, Doubts, Web MD (Feb. 2, 2021), https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210202/black-vaccine-hesitancy-rooted-in-mistrust-doubts.
[5] Dezimey Kum, Fueled by a History of Mistreatment, Black Americans Distrust the New COVID-19 Vaccines, TIME (Dec. 28, 2020 8:30 AM), https://time.com/5925074/black-americans-covid-19-vaccine-distrust/.
[6] Id.
[7] Javonte Anderson, America has a history of medically abusing Black people. No wonder many are wary of COVID-19 vaccines, USA Today (Feb. 16, 2021, 7:01 AM),
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/02/16/black-history-covid-vaccine-fears-medical-experiments/4358844001/.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Dezimey Kum, Fueled by a History of Mistreatment, Black Americans Distrust the New COVID-19 Vaccines, TIME (Dec. 28, 2020 8:30 AM), https://time.com/5925074/black-americans-covid-19-vaccine-distrust/.
[12] Id.
[13] Id.
[14] Id.
[15] Saundra Young, Black Vaccine Hesitancy Rooted in Mistrust, Doubts, Web MD (Feb. 2, 2021), https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210202/black-vaccine-hesitancy-rooted-in-mistrust-doubts.
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
[20] Id.
[21] Id.
[22] Dezimey Kum, Fueled by a History of Mistreatment, Black Americans Distrust the New COVID-19 Vaccines, TIME (Dec. 28, 2020 8:30 AM), https://time.com/5925074/black-americans-covid-19-vaccine-distrust/.
[23] Gene Demby & Shereen Marisol Meraji, A Shot in the Dark, Code Switch, NPR (Feb. 24, 2021, 12:18 AM), https://www.npr.org/transcripts/968359504.
[24] Saundra Young, Black Vaccine Hesitancy Rooted in Mistrust, Doubts, Web MD (Feb. 2, 2021), https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/20210202/black-vaccine-hesitancy-rooted-in-mistrust-doubts.
[25] Id.
[26] Dezimey Kum, Fueled by a History of Mistreatment, Black Americans Distrust the New COVID-19 Vaccines, TIME (Dec. 28, 2020 8:30 AM), https://time.com/5925074/black-americans-covid-19-vaccine-distrust/.
[27] Id.
