THE COVID-19 mortality rate for black people in the first half of 2020 was 2.5 times higher than for white people, yet 72 per cent of black people are likely or very likely to refuse the jab, according to a recent report of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE).

“Once bitten, twice shy” are apt words to sum up part of the underlying reasons for black COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Of course, the picture is much more complex, but there appears to be two fundamental grounds for this black hesitancy; racism and religion. The “bite”, however, relates to racism in healthcare.

If a black person is bitten, there is a reasonable expectation that on presenting to a clinician, appropriate healthcare will be administered by way of checking whether the skin is broken and if so, following anti-infection protocols.

However, in the past, there have been infamous cases of black people being bitten and infected by the very healthcare clinicians or healthcare officials that were supposed to heal them and not make them sick.

Tuskegee remains the most infamous case.

Some may say that the Tuskegee experiment occurred 4,322 miles away in America, not in the UK. However, racism respects no borders; it’s a mental attitude that manifests in conduct. In the case of Tuskegee the conduct referred to is in the title of the experiment i.e. Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.

There have been cases of black people being bitten by those that were supposed to heal them

Terrence Channer

The case of Henrietta Lacks (a black American woman who died of cervical cancer whose tissue sample was retained for experimental purposes) is the other often-cited case. Studies have shown that white doctors believe that black people have higher pain threshold levels. I’m unsure whether this is coming from the thought that black people are animalistic or due to the amount of persecution that we have endured over the centuries (yet we remain standing).

Black people are detained under the Mental Health at four times the rate of white people and are ten times more likely to be the subject of mental health community treatment orders.

Research

Stillbirths of black babies are twice the rate of white babies. Black doctors are disciplined at the rate of 10.2 per cent compared to 8.8 per cent of white doctors.

The mortality rate for black pregnant women is relatively sky-high, with 38 pregnant black women out of every 100,000 dying while under maternity care, compared to just seven out of 100,000 white pregnant women.

Research conducted by ClearView found that “the majority – over 60 per cent of black people in the UK do not believe their health is equally protected by the NHS compared to white people.”

Therefore, there is just cause for black people to distrust healthcare, particularly COVID-19 vaccination. The black men in the Tuskegee experiment were considered expendable, subhuman. Their lives did not matter.

There was simply no refuge from the scourge of racism for these men in healthcare. Emancipation did not equal equity or equality; it simply meant that the long road had started to freedom in terms of housing, healthcare, employment, education and criminal justice. Emancipation was just the first rung on what has proved to be an extremely high ladder.

I have experienced febrile, highly emotive debate in a number of black organised online Zoom discussions on whether ‘we’ should take the vaccine. One of the understandable safety concerns is whether black people have been proportionately represented in the vaccine trials.

The figures show that in the Pfizer and Moderna trials just under ten per cent of the participants were black (black people make up 12.3% of the US population and three per cent of the UK population).

I’ve had a number of arguments with black anti-vaxxers and each time they have failed to provide any credible expert evidence to support their position that the vaccine is either unnecessary or harmful.

There is a clear fight, therefore, of the vaccine against the virus and the truth against misinformation.

There are those that will never budge, who will remain obdurate and unshakeable in their belief that COVID-19 vaccination is a biological weapon against black people irrespective of the clear evidence that white people can’t wait to be vaccinated.

There is simply no evidence that these vaccines have been engineered to protect white people and harm black people.

The most notable distinction between this vaccination programme and racist black medical experimentation, is that this programme clearly appears to be colour-blind. No one gets to choose which of the vaccines they are given. I’m hoping that when the dust settles, those who remain committed to their anti-vaccination position will be in the minority.

Although the vaccine remains a personal choice, this virus is not a personal healthcare issue – which is why I am a supporter of COVID-19 vaccination. Urgent research needs to be conducted on whether the black community would be less hesitant if black experts had oversight with vaccines being administered by black clinicians. I believe that the more black experts are seen to be in control of the process the less reluctant the black community will be to vaccination.

This is not a personal healthcare issue – which is why I am a supporter of COVID-19 vaccination

Terrence Channer

Consideration should also be given to an independent black led expert task force to have oversight of the vaccination process to raise black confidence levels and for designated vaccination centres manned by black clincians.

Vaccine hesitancy in the black community is a referendum on the UK healthcare system; it sends a very powerful message of distrust. I am hoping that early black adopters will help to build trust.

As for any credible theological reasons for refusing the jab, I do not see any; respected leading black majority church leaders are beginning to make that clear.

Risks

Moving forward, post vaccination, we need to look very carefully at the issue of racism in healthcare generally.

Ultimately, notwithstanding the clear historical and ongoing racism in healthcare, I firmly believe that the risks far outweigh any potential risks of the vaccine.

Terrence Channer is a consultant solicitor at Scott-Moncrieff & Associates LLP which specialises in police misconduct, injury and healthcare law. He is a passionate anti-racism advocate and dedicates much of his time in this area.