Transcripts For CSPAN Congressional Black Caucus Chair Bass

A National Political reporter for politico. I am joined by karen bass of california today, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. Physician dr. Ity blackstock, ceo of advancing health equity, which partners with Health Care Organizations to tackle Racial Health disparities. We are here today to talk about the disproportionate impact the coronavirus pandemic is having on people of color, particularly African Americans and latinos. It is an issue that i have spoken to policymakers about extensively over the last two months. We will discuss the push by lawmakers in Public Health the data on coronavirus cases, the historic neglect of black and brown health that has led to this moment, what immediate action is being taken to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus on minorities, and finally, what can be done to address the longstanding Public Health issues that this crisis has brought to the forefront. We are going to incorporate ,udience questions at the end eet using the ask politico. I want to address the news of the day before we dive into the topic at hand. A few hours ago, majority announced to the house would not be returning next week for a vote, reversing the plan to come back to washington. Congressman bass, do you agree with speaker pelosis decision, should members have voted ahead of time, and what with the impact of this decision be on the house to quickly pass the next relief package . Was gladoman bass i to hear yesterday in our caucus call that we were coming back next week, so i was surprised by that because i was not sure what we were actually coming back to do. I know that staff and members from various communities are hard at work on the next bill, but i know it is not ready. So i thought we would be coming back when the bill was ready. So it makes sense to me that we are not coming back next week. It is also coming from the experience of last week, quite difficult for 400 folks to all have social distancing, i know when it comes to elevators in Community Meetings it is quite challenging. Thank you. So i would like to move on to the reason we are here, which is the impact of the virus on minority communities. In Milwaukee County and africanamerican is three times more likely to die from coronavirus and they a white person, and a black person is seven times more likely to die of the coronavirus than a white person in the entire state of wisconsin. As of last week, the latest bill passed by congress, and signed by President Trump, included a provision that required the health and Human Services department to report racial and ethnic data of those tested for the virus, positive cases, toitalizations and deaths the extent that the information is available. What will those pending reports miss and what other relevant data are you looking for as a Public Health expert who works on racial inequality . That is a great question. The Additional Data that we need to know about, we need to have complete data, as you mentioned come on testing. We need to have more mortality data. As of now we are only seeing those estates reporting over 100 deaths, so that data is also incredibly incomplete. We really need to know the full data because we need to know where to we target our resources. We know that there are communities being hardest hit and of those communities would benefit from widespread testing. They would also benefit from contact tracing. Then in terms of health care resources, we need to know where to allocate health care workers, as well as resources like ventilators as well. So there is a lot of information that we can get from this data, we just need to have it in its complete form. Would it be possible to get the data on who actually is having access to a ventilator and how would hospitals or physicians go about reporting that . That is information that may be a little bit more challenging to get, but there is a lot of information in Electronic Health records. So if we were to use those as resources for collecting this data, we could find out the data. For example, how long are people staying on ventilators. Why are patients being taken off of ventilators. We need to look at that data that is aggregated by race as well. Laura congresswoman, you signed on to that full bill. Aspects of it made it into the coronavirus package, but you signed onto the data reporting bill and not all of it made it into the package. Will the rest of it be included in the next coronavirus package , and what else are you hoping will be included that will address the disparities we are seeing . Congresswoman bass i appreciate everything the doctor had to, because that is absolutely what we are fighting for in the Congressional Black Caucus. I will tell you that it is very concerning when you talk about latinoicanamerican or population, that people immediately talk about the Underlying Health conditions. Seewhenever i hear that, i that as an excuse to do nothing now. That is what i am deeply troubled by. So as the doctor described, we have very little information. It is anecdotal. And we really need to have concrete information. So the Congressional Black Caucus is calling for several things. One, if you have areas of the country where you have such an extreme disproportionate rate, you need to target resources there. Because we lack the leadership from the administration and the commitment on a National Testing strategy, we are left with then you need to send and focus the testing where the data, at least what we have now, is so extreme. Contact tracing we absolutely need. In the testing, we also need to have rapid results. We need to have the antibody test. We understand there are controversies around that. We need to make sure people are getting treatment. And we need to make sure that people have access to ventilators. The president said yesterday that we had 70 ventilators that we were sending them overseas, when we know that some hospitals are making decisions on who will get a ventilator and they are using some process where if you have too many underlying conditions or we do not think that you might live, then you do not get a ventilator. Guess how that is going to turn out. The other thing is there needs to be resources for community education. So there are two ways in particular the black population is looked at his one, you have too many Underlying Health conditions, and two, you are not abiding by personal Public Health guidelines. As opposed to if if you look at the black workforce we are the ones on the front lines at the grocery store. You know, medical folks doing home health. So that is the reason why we know people are exposed and getting the virus. Chronicpeaking of the conditions that are very prevalent in africanamerican and latino populations, i want to step back a bit and talk disparities,alth the neglect of black and brown health over generations and that has played a role in this moment with the coronavirus. A we could go, dr. Cumming told me about a black man in his 60s that came to the urgent care where you work at, and he was suffering from coronavirus symptoms, he was having trouble breathing and he did not want to go to the hospital for treatment because he was afraid he would die there. He was afraid it was a death sentence. That exchange captured the historic distrust of africanamericans with the health care system, but that distressed is rooted in generations of inequality into pieces. Can you detail some of the key historic disparities that you are seeing impacting black and brown americans to this day . Runslackstock history deep in terms of the relationship of black communities to the health care system. And i know when we spoke recently, i mentioned even as far back as slavery when not only did black people not have access to health care, but black weree who were enslaved experimented on. So even some of the equipment that we use today in a normal gynecologists exam, like the speculum, that was something that was created because of experimentation on black women who worked enslaved. Even painful surgical gynecological procedures were also used on women who were slaves. So it is not just a situation of black people not being able to accept health care, but also being abused and exploited by the health care system. Thethen fast forward to 1930s, i know many people have heard about the Tuskegee Syphilis study, but that is a study that was commissioned by the u. S. Public Health Service were uneducated black men enrolled in a study without informed consent, meaning they did not know why they would be in the study. They were known to have syphilis, but they were told that they had bad blood. And even once a treatment, penicillin, had been discovered andsyphilis, the enrollees participants were never told her there was a treatment and they were never treated. So they were promised free meals, free medical care. And several other promises. In order to get them to be in the study, and the only reason the study was interrupted and ended was because there was a black epidemiologist who discovered the study was taking place. All that to say that there are cases, there are situations in our history where black communities have not only been neglected, but violated by the health care system. So even fastforward to thinking about hiv. We have some of the highest rates of hiv in this country among they are in black communities, specifically black women. And thinking about the structural barriers in place, mainly structural racism, that is responsible for those numbers not really moving in the last few decades, and in fact increasing. So the history is quite rich. Rep. Bass let me just add to that. Laura i do want to go to you on the same topic, because you were a physicians assistant during the hiv epidemic, so do you see the parallel between that virus and Racial Disparities that have carried over . Rep. Bass yes, i worked in the Emergency Rooms with the doctors and it was at the beginning of the aids epidemic, where we did not know where it was coming from or anything. But what happened with aids was you had an entire movement led by the lgbt and gay communities because it was primarily meant, but they led a social movement that forced the u. S. To take hiv seriously. And once it got under control in that population, and at numbers increased in the black population, then all of a sudden the concern and urgency around hiv disappeared. So absolutely i am concerned about that. And it is the history of experimentation and all of that, but it is also the history of how black people are treated when they go to the doctor. And there is a history of symptoms being minimized. I have no doubt that when this is over, and we are looking back and we are studying why so many black people died, i guarantee you will find an awful lot of folks who attempted to seek treatment and they were turned away. They were told to go home, they were told to shelterinplace. Stories, onecdotal is a family called 911 further relative and the paramedics came out and said, well, you are having breathing problems but you do not need to worry unless the person turns blue. How many black people turn blue . And even if you are a white person and you turn blue, you are in severe respiratory stress. But it is that kind of minimization and basic mistreatment that is reason why her patient was reluctant to be in the hospital, because he equated that with death. So what i am glad about now is america has learned about Health Disparity. Now the question is, what will we do about it . Will we address the immediate problem or will we use the Health Disparity as a reason to say, that is a hopeless community and what do you expect . So far, we are not finding the urgency. Im glad that we got one in 5 billion in, but we need far more than that. Not just money, we need to focus, commitment, prioritization. Laura on the topic of focus and commitment, and immediate action that can be taken to address Racial Disparities, President Trump asked secretary ben carson to address the minority communities being hit hardest. So far we have not seen a timeline. I just asked carsons office if they had one. Has a carson or anybody reached out to the Congressional Black Caucus and what do you hope that counsel can address that may not be possible through legislation . Rep. Bass first of all, i learned about the council in preparation for this call, so that should answer that question. And what i read about it is if the focus is to focus on individual behavior of black people, then it would make me very angry. The house is on fire, we need to send the Fire Department. You do not send at the Fire Department to the Burning House to assess the structure, you send them to put out the fire. If the task force is going to focus on immediate intervention, that is fine. If they are going to focus on, we need to teach black people how to behave, then that is a real problem. Nobody said to the young white kids on the beach in florida, the reason why you have a high exposure rate amongst the white population is that group. Ura i will get to you in a moment, but so far the task force has said it plans to address the immediate necessity within black and brown communities. But so far a template has not been released. Have ackstock, i do question for you from one of our viewers. Thatare some of the ways physicians in training on the front lines, residents, fellows, can be involved in systemlevel changes to ensure equitable care for patients . That iskstock i think a question that is not just enough. I think that not only in training, but in medical school or whatever prehealth school that a Health Care Professional is in, we really need to talk about the social determinants of health because it really is a matter of adequate housing, about quality education, Employment Opportunities that are factors of the health outcome. So for a physician in training, i would encourage them to get involved with communitybased organizations. There are so Many Community partners in these neighborhoods being impacted, that are already doing the work. There are faithbased organizations, neighborhood coalitions that the physicians and medical students can get involved with that are already doing work on the ground in terms of education and in terms of messaging, but they also know that the messaging that certain communities are getting, the black communities, about covid19 has to be done in a nuanced way versus connecting with other communities. So there are communitybased organizations already doing the work, so i would encourage people to get out of the socalled ivory tower and get into the neighborhoods where the Community Members are being impacted the most. Laura thank you. Congresswoman, i have another question from a viewer. Opportunity for federal funding to be directed to schools, like howard and morehouse, to conduct Clinical Trials for africanamericans and other people of color . There has been Public Health Public Health has written that Clinical Trials are not usually diverse, so is there an opportunity for federal funding to go that way . Ongresswoman bass rep. Bass i think that that is an excellent idea. Within the priorities of the Congressional Black Caucus it is absolutely the focus on hbcu. But i will say they are not everywhere, so that is an issue, but the Clinical Trial question is important and those are primarily white men. So we need to include folks in Clinical Trials, but likely said, we have to do education within the community and the Community Needs to hear from people like them that this is a Clinical Trial that is safe, nobody is experimenting on you. You mightve heard about the physicians at that when it came to testing a vaccine, the first thing they suggested was lets go to africa. It is not just within the united states, experimentation on black folks happens here and abroad. We talked blackstock, about how many of your patients in brooklyn are essential workers. What are you hearing from them and their ability to return to work . Are you concerned about the potential for reinfection . Dr. Blackstock i think that i shared with you that we have seen the first wave. We have hit the apex, i think a week or so ago in new york city, so what i think now is people coming in who are actually ready to go back to work, they are about three or four weeks out from their symptoms. But there are questions that remain about the novel virus. For example, how long are people infectious for . We have people going back to work after one week, two weeks or three weeks, and my concern for essential workers is they do not have adequate personal protective equipment, ppe, which is one of the reasons they got sick in the first place. Many of my patients are black and brown. They are essential workers, service workers, and several of them have expressed fear to me about going back to work and possibly reinfecting their coworkers. But they have to go back to work because they have used up their sick leave and there is no other option. These are concerns that we need to Start Talking about to make sure that everybody is safe. Laura i wan