Over the past two years of COVID, I have seen the public's reactions to the virus and vaccines. Many people of all races have not taken the virus seriously and have disobeyed the mask mandate and many are refusing to get the Covid vaccine. I took the virus seriously and got vaccinated, but many in my family were very skeptical of the vaccine and didn't take it. My family is black, and they watch the news and see that black Americans are suffering the most from Covid. I wonder why they are so wary of the vaccine when it protects us. Recently, during Thanksgiving, I heard a family member say that the vaccine “wasn’t for black people.” Hearing this shocked me because it made me realize that many black members of my family fear the medical industry and are very suspicious of what professional doctors have said about Covid. This prompted me to investigate the source of this distrust in doctors and I was shocked to see how deep this situation runs. The medical field has abused and neglected the black body for over a century, from slavery to the present day. Slavery allowed black bodies to be used as test subjects by white doctors to advance the medical field. Since then, throughout history, white doctors have abused their power to manipulate and harm black people for scientific purposes. I believe racism is ingrained in healthcare and Black Americans suffer from it. My research led me to wonder how has the historical abuse and neglect of the Black body carried out by a racist medical field led Black Americans to fear and distrust the healthcare industry? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The issue of medical abuse begins with slavery where the black body was already subject to abuse at the hands of its white owners. Slaves did not own their own bodies, which allowed slave owners to sell them to other people for experimentation. Writer Stephen Kenny discusses historians James Breeden and Todd Savitt who conducted in-depth studies of the exploitation of black slaves. Their research revealed that slave bodies were trafficked into Virginia medical schools so that these bodies could be used to instruct students. At this time, aspiring white doctors viewed slaves as commodities that they could use to improve their medical knowledge. They also believed that slaves were disposable, so if they experimented on them and the slave died, they could always get another one. Breeden and Savitt also discovered that body parts of black slaves were used in medical societies for dissection and observation. One case that illustrates the horrific abuse of medical power during the period of slavery is the case of Charleston Elias S. Bennett and an anonymous man. child slave. According to Bennett's diary, he discovered a small tumor on a slave girl when she was only four weeks old. He saw a research opportunity and decided to surgically remove the tumor with another apprentice doctor. At that time, many of the tools and medications we have today did not exist, making this procedure extremely dangerous. Bennett then performed the operation and noted that there were a lot of complications during it. As the girl grew, the growth of theThe tumor only got worse and she eventually died, likely due to Bennett's interference. For these doctors, the black body was not human, it was just a subject that they could continually use to conduct research. unethical procedures. Some of these doctors who are praised today for their groundbreaking medical discoveries are people who consistently mistreat black people. Writer Harriet A. Washington is the author of numerous articles and books on the medical torture of black people, in one of her articles exposing the famous doctor James Marion Sims. Washington writes that she once thought that James Sims, also known as the father of gynecology, was the "medical hero" that history gave him. After further research, Washington discovered that Sims conducted numerous unethical and futile surgeries on slaves. He would use black women to conduct experimental surgeries to correct fistulas that could occur during prolonged labor. Without the consent of the female slaves, he made cuts in their bladders, vaginas and rectums without putting them to sleep under anesthesia. This would leave women with lifelong problems. He took what he learned from experiments on enslaved women and used it to help the white wives of slave owners. Unlike the enslaved women, he put them to sleep using chloroform, but horribly allowed the women's husbands to have sex with them while they slept. Washington discovered in further research that although Sims claimed to want to heal enslaved women; he would leave most of them infected to pursue other research opportunities. There was a statue of James Sims in Central Park that was taken down when he was put on display, but the damage he caused continues. Because of his journal entries claiming that black slaves could endure the pain of his procedures, he started the widely held lie that black people cannot feel pain. This lie still impacts black patients today and has become ingrained in medical history. Black bodies continued to suffer at the hands of a corrupt medical industry and the industry was able to thrive on this suffering. We expect doctors to always be professional and show some respect to their patients, but that's not what Henrietta Lacks experienced. Henrietta Lacks was a mother of five who was diagnosed with cervical cancer by Dr. Howard Jones of John Hopkins. She underwent numerous radiation treatments to treat her cancer. During his treatment, his cells were collected and studied by Dr. George Gey. Gey found his cells surprising because instead of dying, they duplicated themselves. Lacks ultimately died from her cancer, but John Hopkins still had her cells. Without permission from Henrietta Lacks or her family, they began using her cells for research and still do today. His cells have been used to make incredible medical discoveries and even played a role in the creation of the Covid 19 vaccine. While medical companies have made millions from his cells, the Lacks family is fighting against these companies who continue to take advantage of her. Henrietta Lacks is continually disrespected after her death, most medical institutes, including John Hopkins, did not even recognize Henrietta until her family began drawing more attention to her story. This gross and invasive abuse of the body has only gotten worse throughout history. One of the most famous cases of medical abuseis the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study. The Tuskegee syphilis study was a case that showed "the dangers of unchecked medical madness and the sexualized power of doctors over the innocent" (Reverby). The black men trusted these white doctors when they volunteered for the study, but in return they were manipulated. In 1932, the United States Public Health Service conducted a study of black men who already had syphilis. The men were under the impression that these doctors would help them cure their illness, but they left it untreated for 40 years so they could study its effects. Doctors claimed the volunteers had “bad blood” and put them through a series of painful and unnecessary surgeries. The government allowed this unethical experiment to continue for years, even after some of the volunteers' wives and children were diagnosed with syphilis. The government didn't put an end to it until 1972, when a new investigator reported the story to the media. The Tuskegee Experiment left a stain on the medical field and marked a turning point in how black Americans viewed the health care industry. After 1972, when the Tuskegee Study came to light, many Black Americans were disturbed and frightened by the medical industry. The people who were supposed to help them mistreated them and took advantage of the black body. Although this abuse did not happen to all Black Americans, they were nonetheless traumatized by how entrenched racism is in the medical field. Black Americans were so afraid of doctors that they began to avoid them. This has led to an increase in preventable deaths and illnesses among Black Americans. Medical author John Hoberman states that the Tuskegee Experiment gave rise to a dangerous view of black health and led black Americans to believe rumors about the medical industry. Many black Americans believed that the AIDS virus was an orchestrated government plot to kill the black community. This is not a factual statement, but relations were poor between white doctors and black patients and tensions were high, so they believed it to be true. Relations between black doctors and patients continued to deteriorate and impact the healthcare system. Hoberman gives a different perspective on why relationships between white doctors and black patients can be very conflictual. When some black patients arrive with diabetes, drug problems, or gunshot wounds, white doctors begin to stereotype black patients and have a hard time feeling bad for them. Some white doctors believe that black patients are prone to violence and this type of thinking influences the level of care black patients receive. Hoberman says there can also be times when black patients can give white doctors a hard time, but it can happen to all patients. It doesn't matter if the patient gives the doctor a hard time or if there is a certain view of black patients, the doctor is the one who is knowledgeable. The doctor is responsible for the patient and it is up to him to treat him with the best care. The patient is the one who needs help and cannot control the narrative that has been painted about them. There is a clear bias among white doctors against black patients that begins in doctors' training. As someone outside of the medical profession, I believe that the medical field is built on racism and that the problem is racist doctors. Dr. LarryDossey has a different take on the real problem. He says the white-dominated industry has been slow to recognize the racial biases and fears of black patients. Many white doctors are blind to the discrimination and unconscious bias they may carry. They are unaware of this bias because their medical knowledge is rooted in racism. The problem may not be with the medical industry or doctors, but with decades of teaching. Much of what doctors know today was discovered through experiments on black patients, but they are not taught this. Dr. Amanda Calhoun states that “the medical system is not tainted by isolated historical atrocities like Henrietta Lacks, Havasupai, and Tuskegee; it is steeped in racism” (Calhoun). Most doctors are unaware of these atrocities because they have been silenced and ignored. Doctors like Calhoun and Dossey say racism in the medical field affects both doctors and patients. The doctor's treatment of black patients is due to a lack of recognition that the black body has been dehumanized for decades. Although I agree with Dossey and Calhoun that some white doctors are simply wrong. This does not excuse the fact that there is still a disproportionate rate of Black Americans dying because of the ignorance of white doctors. Today, black bodies are still neglected and most of the time, when black patients consult white doctors, their concerns are ignored. like paranoia. Black pain is not treated on the same level as white pain. Some doctors are reluctant to give black patients strong painkillers while they recover from surgery. Bias appears in situations like this or when black men are 30% less likely to receive proper diagnostic procedures. Black patients are also more likely to be misdiagnosed than any other race. When things like this happen constantly, it's understandable why Black Americans have a hard time seeking help from the medical industry. Black mothers in the medical field are terrified of giving birth because of the treatment they receive in hospitals. Black mothers are five times more likely to die in childbirth than white mothers because their concerns and pain are often ignored. Black babies also suffer at the hands of a neglected medical field. Government statistics show that infant mortality rates for black children are the highest. Black mothers are traumatized by painful births and even the death of their babies. Whether or not white doctors are aware of the bias, it costs black patients their lives and adds to generational medical trauma. The decade of medical trauma and ongoing problems in the medical field shows why Black Americans are so hesitant to take the Covid vaccine. This reluctance to get vaccinated has a negative impact on the Black community. Black Americans are 1.4 times more likely to contract Covid than white Americans and 2 times more likely to be killed by it. A survey by the Pew Research Center showed that of 71% of Black Americans who know people affected by Covid, only 42% would be willing to get vaccinated. They are afraid of the contents of the vaccine and have multiple reasons not to trust the vaccine. Strained relations between doctors and black patients do not help encourage them to get vaccinated. It is at times like this that distrust.