Black and Hispanic communities grappling with vaccine misinformation

SAN JOSE, California – On an unusually hot day in February, two men working with a local community group went door-to-door in an ethnically diverse neighborhood to persuade people to sign up for Covid-19 vaccinations.

It was just after 11 a.m. when they encountered the first person reluctant to get the shot. Two doors down and 30 minutes later it happened again. For nearly an hour, they stood on a lawn with George Rodriguez, 67, discussing the neighborhood, the pandemic and available vaccines.

“I’m seeing all of this online, about how it’s going to change my DNA. It affects your DNA, doesn’t it? asked Mr. Rodriguez, who is Hispanic. “There is too much, too much conflicting information. And then I hear that even if you get the vaccine, you can still get sick. Why would I have it then?

Black and Hispanic communities, which have been hit hardest by the pandemic and have lower vaccination rates than whites, face vaccine conspiracy theories, rumors and misleading information on social media like Facebook, Instagram , YouTube and Twitter and private online. messages, health officials and disinformation researchers said.

Misinformation varies, such as claims that vaccines can alter DNA – which is not true – and that vaccines don’t work, or that people of color are used as guinea pigs. Much of this incorrect information comes from friends, family and celebrities, who are bubbling up in communities that have been particularly affected by the pandemic and who face other barriers to getting vaccinated.

Foreign news outlets and anti-vaccine activists have also aggressively tried to cast doubt on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines made in the United States and Europe.

Misinformation has complicated some states’ efforts to reach black and Hispanic residents, especially when health officials provided special registration codes for vaccine appointments. Instead of a benefit, in some cases codes have become the basis for new false narratives.

“At first glance, what might sound like doctors prioritizing communities of color is read by some people online like ‘Oh these doctors want us to be the first to be the guinea pigs,’ Kolina Koltai said. , a researcher at the University of Washington who studies online conspiracy theories. “I’ve seen people on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Clubhouse – you name it – say the codes are a way to force the vaccine on communities of color on an experimental basis.”

Research conducted by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation in mid-February showed a stark disparity between racial groups receiving the vaccine in 34 states that released the data.

State figures vary widely. In Texas, where people who identify as Hispanic make up 42 percent of the population, only 20 percent of vaccinations have gone to this group. In Mississippi, where blacks make up 38% of the population, they have received 22% of vaccinations. According to a New York Times analysis, the vaccination rate for black Americans is half that of whites, and the gap for Hispanics is even greater.

While researchers say the lack of easy access to vaccination sites could be the main factor behind this shortfall, misinformation plays a role.

The belief that doctors are interested in experimenting on certain communities has deep roots within certain groups, Ms. Koltai said. Anti-vaccine activists drew on historical examples, including Nazi doctors who carried out experiments in concentration camps and the Baltimore hospital where, 70 years ago, cancer cells were collected from Henrietta Lacks, a black mother of five, without her consent.

“The problem with disinformation is that it works best when it’s built around a core of truth. In this case, many communities of color don’t trust the medical establishment because they don’t have the best history with it, ”said Shireen Mitchell, founder of Stop Online Violence Against Women, a group that supports women of color who are harassed. online.

An experiment conducted in 1943 on nearly 400 black men in Tuskegee, Ala., Is one of the most studied examples of medical abuse in the black community. For four decades, scientists have observed men they knew to be infected with syphilis, but have not come up with treatments to study the progression of the disease. When the experiment began in the 1970s, it was condemned by the medical community as a major violation of ethical standards.

Researchers studying disinformation have been following mentions of Tuskegee on social media over the past year. While Tuskegee averaged several hundred mentions per week on Facebook and Twitter, several notable spikes coincided with the introduction of the Covid-19 vaccines, according to Zignal Labs, a media information company.

In the last week of November, when pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer announced promising results in their latest studies on the safety of their Covid-19 vaccines, mentions of Tuskegee jumped to 7,000 per week.

There was another lull until mid-December, when the Food and Drug Administration announced it had given emergency vaccine approval. Mentions of Tuskegee soared to nearly 5,000 this week, according to Zignal, with some of the more viral tweets calling the coronavirus vaccines the “New Tuskegee Study”.

Doctors say they are battling vaccine hesitancy in other demographic groups as well. Last month, a poll by NORC’s Public Affairs Research Center found that 23 percent of Republicans said they “definitely” wouldn’t get vaccinated, while 21 percent said they wouldn’t get. “Probably” no vaccine against the coronavirus.

Native American groups are battling vaccine fears in their communities, and doctors have reported that some of their Chinese-American patients have published articles in Chinese-language media questioning U.S.-made vaccines.

Many blacks and Hispanics were already struggling to make appointments and reach vaccination sites that are often found in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods. And officials in some cities say residents of those neighborhoods have also flooded vaccination appointment systems and taken supplies for poorer black and Hispanic residents.

Misinformation about who is allowed to receive the vaccine, when it is available and how it has been tested for safety has added even more difficulties, said Mitchell.

At a mass vaccination site at Oakland Coliseum on a Friday afternoon, before Anthony Jones, 68, agreed to be vaccinated last month, there was only one last thing he wanted search on Facebook. He pulled out his phone and began typing, gesturing to his grandson, who had driven him to his date.

“I read something about a woman who died as a result of this stuff, and I want to know if she was black,” said Mr Jones, who after several minutes of scrolling could not find the Facebook post that he was looking for. “You see a lot of things on the internet that make you think, as a black man, you shouldn’t be taking this vaccine.”

Mr. Jones eventually gave up. As he walked for his photo, he recalled that the article he saw was on WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and a website he did not recognize.

“My grandson tells me not to believe everything I read on the Internet,” he says. “I like to believe my grandson.”

The next day, Daniel Lander, 38, was crisscrossing a neighborhood in San Jose with Armand Mateos, 28. For the past five months, Mr. Lander has been doing door-to-door visits to a program run by Working Partnerships USA, a community-based organization based in Silicon Valley. The group is working with local county authorities to help dispel misinformation about the pandemic and vaccines.

“We hear people say that they saw this or that celebrity share something on Twitter or Instagram that made them think the vaccine was a bad idea. People value the opinions of people they admire, and these celebrities have a lot of influence, ”said Lander.

As they chatted with Mr Rodriguez, a muscular man and enthusiastic speaker, Mr Lander and Mr Mateos said they understood his concerns. They said they had many of the same questions and explained their decision to get the vaccine themselves. Mr. Rodriguez asked where they received their photos and how it made them feel.

Mr Mateos reflexively touched his left arm, where he had received the vaccine in recent weeks. It hurt, he said, and he wasn’t going to coat her in sugar. But he was convinced that it was safe and that it would keep him and those close to him from falling ill.

“They read all of this online, from different sources of information, which is confusing. But then they meet me, as the person who got the hang of it, and I can give them real answers, ”Mr. Mateos said. He added that many people cited articles in the Spanish versions of Russian state-backed media networks Sputnik and Russia Today. “They are very low on American vaccines. People read these stories and don’t want to be photographed. “

As the two men were leaving, Mr Rodriguez shouted that he was going to be vaccinated that week. They made sure he had the phone number and websites he needed to register, and continued down the street.

“I think I’ll get it later this week,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t make any promises, but I think they convinced me.”