LEX 18 anchor to those hesitant about getting vaccinated: 'Think it over'
and last updated 2021-04-08 22:08:28-04
LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) â There was enough distrust and misinformation to dissuade anyone from taking the coronavirus vaccine once it was ready. For several months, polls have shown a divide along political party lines on whether the virus was real or if the medicine itself was ready for consumption.
There is a deep-seeded skepticism among African-Americans when it comes to indoctrinations. I remember my grandparents, who grew up in the Tuscaloosa area, talking about the Tuskegee experiment. In the 1930s, the U.S. Public Health Service enrolled 600 African-American men from rural Alabama in the study and infected two-thirds of them with syphilis without their knowledge. They were not provided any health care as researchers studied the progression of the disease. Some of the men died; other went blind, insane, or suffered other severe health problems. Nearly a century later, the psychological effect â and the distrust of free injections or government-provided health care â still weighs on this community.