About 30% of Black Ohioans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 45% of white Ohioans, according to the Ohio Department of Health. Information on vaccinations and race is inconsistently collected across the country, but the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that according to the data available, about 9% of coronavirus vaccine recipients in America are Black despite making up about 12% of the U.S. population.
“We are the people who are most concerned about getting it and we say things like, ‘Oh the Tuskegee, the Tuskegee,’” Fudge said. “I said, do you all even know what happened at Tuskegee?”
She is referring to the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service. In that, the American government caused the deaths of more than 100 Black male participants by preventing them from receiving penicillin, the standard treatment for syphilis by 1947.
Fudge pointed out that the perpetrator of the Tuskegee experiment killed Black people by preventing them from getting a treatment, not by giving them a vaccine.
“So if we’re going to tell the story, tell it right,” she said. “We have to do better. Right now, the governor has lifted all restraints about what we can do. Just think if we get into a position where we all start to get sick again because somebody didn’t care enough about themselves or other people to get a shot.”
Fudge visited a vaccination clinic put on by Public Health-Dayton & Montgomery County as part of the Biden-Harris administration’s national Month of Action campaign to get all eligible Americans vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly as possible. Other big names like Vice President Kamala Harris, First Lady Jill Biden and members of the Cabinet are touring the country this month.
The White House acknowledged this week that President Joe Biden’s administration will fall shy of its goal to get 70% of American adults fully vaccinated by the Fourth of July. About 150 million Americans, or 45% of the country’s population, have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
After leaving the area, Fudge and U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Columbus traveled with a tour bus emblazoned with the slogan, “We can do this,” to visit the Mid-Ohio Foodbank in Grove City near Columbus.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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