Marcella Nunez-Smith, recently appointed to lead a new federal task force on coronavirus inequities, told the Financial Times. "If you think about what it is to have 400 years in this country (since slaves first arrived in the US) being marginalized and minoritized, you can imagine the distrust you would have in the system," Dr. And that alarms the Biden administration. And that system could be the existing health infrastructure and guidance which is not geared to Black American interests," he said.Įven as polls show confidence in the vaccines has increased among Americans overall, confidence among African Americans is lower than other demographic groups. That evil may be the 'system,' not just COVID itself. "It plays on fears about people needing to protect themselves against an unknown evil. Access to reliable information on the safety of the vaccines and where to get them is also not distributed equally, not even on Facebook.īut social media misinformation plays a particularly harmful role in spreading fear about the vaccines, said Neil Johnson, a professor of physics at George Washington University who studies online extremism.
SPREADING VACCINE MISINFORMATION UNDERMINE EFFORTS IMMUNIZE REGISTRATION
Residents from white neighborhoods claiming vaccine appointments in Black neighborhoods.Īnother culprit is the digital divide, with vaccine registration systems mostly online. Fewer spots to get vaccinated in predominantly Black communities. "From an African-American standpoint, we have plenty good reasons to be a bit distrustful of the American health-care system," said Hines, a Los Angeles obstetrician and gynecologist who has seen first-hand the harmful impact of misinformation and disinformation campaigns on the Black community. Her patients cite the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which denied Black men treatment to study the disease's progression, and the case of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cancer cells were used for research without her permission. La Tanya Hines, a Los Angeles obstetrician and gynecologist. "Now I hear from 90% of my clients, 'I can't wait to get vaccinated.'"įalse and misleading information is not the only-or even the main-factor in vaccine hesitancy.īlack people are wary of a racially biased health-care system that has long ignored and mistreated them and harbors a dark history of medical experimentation, often without consent, says Dr. "At first, 75% of my clients were saying, 'I'm not going to get the vaccination.' But as we had these conversations and I told them things that I was being educated about, they began to do research and then they felt more comfortable with the vaccination," Randolph said. In Randolph's Capitol Heights, Maryland beauty salon, tall tales told on Facebook and Twitter don't stand much of a chance against an arsenal of medical facts, as she gently coaxes clients to bare their shoulders for the shot. We can't cede this space to purveyors of disinformation. "Our communities have been marinating in this disinformation for months," Thomas said. The Fulton County Medical Examiner's office determined Aaron died of natural causes, but not before falsehoods and doubts ricocheted all over social media. Seventeen days later when Aaron died at the age of 86, anti-vaccine activists linked his death, without evidence, to the coronavirus vaccine. "I was proud to get the COVID-19 vaccine earlier today at Morehouse School of Medicine," he wrote in his final tweet. In early January, the baseball great got publicly vaccinated with civil rights leaders in Georgia to reassure Black Americans the shots are safe. Take misinformation that swirled around Hank Aaron's death. Now it's taking on something just as dangerous and more insidious: Viral misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines that is contributing to Black Americans getting vaccinated at a much lower rate than white Americans. The Health In-Reach and Research Initiative-or HAIR-used to focus on educating people about chronic diseases such as diabetes and colon cancer, Thomas says. Thomas, who runs the Maryland Center for Health Equity at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. Randolph has put herself on the front lines of the Black community's fight against COVID vaccine misinformation, part of a network of barbershops and beauty salons working with Dr. And no, people of color are not being used as guinea pigs. It won't implant a microchip to track your movements. No, the vaccine isn't an effort to sterilize Black people.
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