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Relatives of Subjects In Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment Take Part In Ad Campaign Targeting Black Americans Hesitant to Get COVID Vaccine
About a half-dozen relatives of subjects of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment are taking part in an ad campaign targeting Black Americans who are hesitant about receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I want to save lives,” said Omar Neal, the nephew of Freddie Lee Tyson, one of several hundred men who were involved in the study without their informed consent.
Omar Neal encouraged Black Americans to get the vaccine. Photo: Ad Council/ YouTube screenshot.
The 1932 study, conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service in Macon County, Alabama, on the campus of the HBCU that is now known as Tuskegee University, was originally called the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” and involved 600 Black men, including 399 with syphilis. The men were told they were being treated for “bad blood” and received free medical exams,
Only 32% of Black adults say they would take a COVID-19 vaccine. That speaks volumes about the need for a reckoning on racism in healthcare and building trust in the communities hit hardest by the pandemic.
And with more than 26 million COVID-19 shots administered in the U.S. alone so far, no red flags have been reported.
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But Tuskegee is not a complete outlier. A recent survey conducted by the communications firm Edelman revealed that as of November, only 59% of people in the U.S. were willing to get vaccinated within a year, with just 33% happy to do so as soon as possible.