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The new Moderna covid-19 vaccine is showing some promising results. That’s good news. Let’s use this drug (and any other successful vaccines that might emerge) to repay some old and new debts. As soon as possible.
Fact One
In 1940, in order to keep their syphilis experiment on 399 Black men going, the U.S. Public Health Service failed to treat their patients with penicillin. The penicillin would have cured them, but the lives of those men mattered less to the U.S. government than the purity of the study results.
Fact Two
The covid-19 virus has ravaged the Black community in the United States. Per the CDC, non-Hispanic Black persons have an infection rate approximately 5 times that of non-Hispanic white persons. That’s true for a whole host of reasons. All of these reasons stem from institutionalized, systemic racism.
It’s time to start reparations
We can begin to right one of these wrong by prioritizing Black Americans as we distribute new vaccines against the virus.
Yes, we need to protect our front-line workers, doctors and nurses. They are first in line, of course. Next in line should be our Black population.