Page 22 - Florida Sentinel 12-18-20

COVID-19 News
Black Woman Helped Discover COVID Vaccine Developed By Moderna
According to a CNN re- port, Dr. Anthony Fauci is urging Black Americans hes- itant to take the COVID-19 vaccine to trust the process - - in part because one of the scientists at the forefront of the vaccine's development is a Black woman.
The nation's top infec- tious disease expert, speak- ing at an event hosted by the National Urban League on last Tuesday, said it was important to acknowl- edge the U. S. history of racism in medical research and understand how that has fostered mistrust among some Black people.
But Fauci stressed that the upcoming COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effec- tive, adding that African American scientists have been involved in their devel- opment.
Dr. Kizzmekia ‘Kizzy’ Corbett was on the team with Dr. Barney Graham, who is married to a Black woman, and has mixed-race children.
DR. BARNEY GRAHAM
or Kizzy Corbett," Fauci said.
Dr. Graham is married to a Black woman, and his son, Daniel, attended Morehouse College and pledge Kappa Alpha Psi with, Tampa native, Johna Andrews Treadwell’s son, Billy.
Corbett is the National Institute of Health's lead sci- entist for coronavirus vac- cine research. She is part of a team that worked with the biotechnology company Moderna on one of the two mRNA vaccines expected to receive emergency use au- thorization from the U. S. Food and Drug Administra- tion this month. Pfizer's vac- cine candidate is the other one.
Black Americans and other people of color have been disproportionately af- fected by COVID-19, increas- ing the urgency among health experts and commu- nity leaders to build confi-
dence and trust in the vac- cine.
But skepticism among some people of color, espe- cially Black Americans, re- mains high.
A study released by the COVID Collaborative, the NAACP and UnidosUS found that only 14% of Black Americans trust that a vac- cine will be safe and 18% trust it will be effective. Their concerns stem largely from a history of racism in medical research and health- care that includes incidents like the Tuskegee syphilis ex- periment, the study found.
For her part, Dr. Cor- bett said she is trying to help earn back that trust in the Black community.
She has been outspo- ken on the role systemic racism has played in the pandemic, and has criticized the Trump administration for a lack of diversity on its coronavirus task force.
Dr. Fauci is taking a similar approach.
He said he generally hears two major concerns about the vaccines: the speed at which they were de- veloped, and their safety and efficacy.
Though vaccines have traditionally taken years or even decades to develop, ad- vancements in vaccine plat- form technology have significantly shortened that process without compromis- ing safety or scientific in- tegrity, Dr. Fauci said.
"The very vaccine that's one of the two that has ab- solutely exquisite levels -- 94 to 95% efficacy against clini- cal disease and almost 100% efficacy against serious dis- ease that are shown to be
clearly safe -- that vaccine was actually developed in my institute's vaccine research center by a team of scientists led by Dr. Barney Gra- ham and his close colleague, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett,
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