Black Americans Don’t Trust Medicine Because Of Racism. That’s Bad In A Pandemic.
By Dan Vergano and Kadia Goba,
Buzzfeed
| 05. 04. 2020
A legacy of racism has left a dangerous divide between the medical establishment and black Americans, now dying at higher rates in the coronavirus pandemic in almost every state.
WASHINGTON — Outside the grocery store in Congress Heights, people are playing dominoes in the parking lot, close together without wearing masks. An auto service truck driver, who’s come to repair a flat tire, isn't wearing a mask either — he says he's had pneumonia and survived getting shot already, so what is coronavirus to him?
In Washington D.C., a city that is 46% black, close to 80% of coronavirus deaths so far are among black people.
And black people are dying at higher rates across the US. Coronavirus has been especially deadly in black neighborhoods in cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York. With US case numbers now surpassing 1.1 million people, the stark racial disparity was most recently on display in Richmond, Virginia, where 62% of COVID-19 cases were among black people in a 52% white city, while all eight people who died of the disease in the city were black.
Last week, Sen. Kamala Harris of California introduced legislation to create a federal task force to investigate racial disparities in coronavirus deaths. "Early...
Related Articles
By Josie Ensor, The Times | 12.09.2025
A fertility start-up that promises to screen embryos to give would-be parents their “best baby” has come under fire for a “misuse of science”.
Nucleus Genomics describes its mission as “IVF for genetic optimisation”, offering advanced embryo testing that allows...
By Hannah Devlin, The Guardian | 12.06.2025
Couples undergoing IVF in the UK are exploiting an apparent legal loophole to rank their embryos based on genetic predictions of IQ, height and health, the Guardian has learned.
The controversial screening technique, which scores embryos based on their DNA...
By Frankie Fattorini, Pharmaceutical Technology | 12.02.2025
Próspera, a charter city on Roatán island in Honduras, hosts two biotechs working to combat ageing through gene therapy, as the organisation behind the city advertises its “flexible” regulatory jurisdiction to attract more developers.
In 2021, Minicircle set up a...
By Vardit Ravitsky, The Hastings Center | 12.04.2025
Embryo testing is advancing fast—but how far is too far? How and where do we draw the line between preventing disease and selecting for “desirable” traits? What are the ethical implications for parents, children, clinicians, and society at large? These...
