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People of color have been grossly under-represented in U.S. vaccine trials over the past decade, according to a new study released Friday by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Harvard, Emory and ‘other institutions.
The study, which looked at data from 230 vaccine trials with nearly 220.00 participants, found that whites made up the majority, or 78%, of participants in trials conducted between June 2011 and June 2020.
Blacks, however, made up 11% of the participants, Hispanics 12%, and American Indians / Alaskan Natives made up 0.4%.
The study, published in the JAMA Network Open, comes as the nation grapples with a Covid-19 pandemic that has had a disproportionate impact on people of color. Health leaders are working to tackle mistrust of vaccines among blacks and browns, saying the vaccine is the key to preventing their communities from becoming more devastating.
Black and Latin Americans die from Covid-19 at three times the rate of whites and are hospitalized at a rate four times the rate, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Researchers are now advocating for more diversity in vaccine trials, saying it will help resolve vaccine reluctance, address safety concerns and educate communities of color. They also note that many vaccine trials have failed to provide complete demographic information about participants.
“This collaborative work highlights an issue that has plagued the scientific community for too long: inadequate representation in clinical trials,” said Dr Steve Pergam, associate professor in the Division of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. “The diversity seen in Covid-19 vaccine trials demonstrates that we can do this, but we need to ensure that future studies focus not only on rapid recruitment, but also inclusion.
Dr Anthony Fauci told CNN last year that he wanted to see people of color sign up for Covid-19 vaccine trials at double their percentage of the population because their communities were hit hard by the pandemic. The United States is 12% black and 18% Latino.
But last summer, researchers said they were struggling to recruit people of color for Covid-19 vaccine trials. For example, in August, blacks and Latinos made up only 10% of the 350,000 people who had signed up for a clinical trial for the coronavirus.
Moderna has made efforts to increase the number of people of color in its vaccine trials, but the company has fallen short of the levels Fauci suggested.
Black leaders say many black Americans have refused to enroll in trials because they don’t want to be “guinea pigs” for vaccine trials due to history of racism in medical research in the country . They cited Tuskegee’s experiments from 1932 to 1972 which recruited 600 black men – 399 who had syphilis and 201 who did not – and tracked the progression of the disease by not treating the men as they died. or suffered from serious health problems.
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