People of color have been underrepresented in U.S.-based 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 examined data from 230 vaccine trials with nearly 220.00 participants, found that white people make up the majority, or 78%, of participants in trials conducted between June 2011 and June 2020.
However, black people made up 11% of the participants, Hispanics made up 12% and American Indians / Alaska residents were 0.4%.
The study, published in the JAMA Network Open, comes as the country struggles with a Covid-19 pandemic that affects people of color excessively. Healthcare leaders are working to combat the mistrust of blacks and browns against the vaccine, saying the shot is key to preventing further devastation in their communities.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black and Latino Americans die three times as fast as they are from Covid-19 and are hospitalized four times higher.
Researchers are now advocating for greater diversity in vaccine trials, saying it will help vaccine hesitation, counter safety issues and educate color communities. They also note that many vaccine trials fail to fully report demographic information about participants.
“This collaborative work highlights a problem that has plagued the scientific community for too long – inadequate representation in clinical trials,” said Dr. Steve Pergam, associate professor in the division of vaccine and infectious diseases at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said. “The diversity found in Covid-19 vaccine trials shows that we can do this, but we need to ensure that future studies focus not only on rapid enrollment but also on inclusion.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN last year that he wants to see the colored people that Covid-19 vaccine trials are twice as many as the percentage of the population because their communities have been hit hard by the pandemic. The US is 12% black and 18% Latino.
But last summer, researchers said they were struggling to recruit coloreds for Covid-19 vaccine trials. For example, in August, black and Latino people were only 10% of the 350,000 people who signed up for a clinical trial on coronavirus.
Moderna has made efforts to increase the number of coloreds in the vaccine trials, but the company has not reached the levels suggested by Fauci.
Black leaders say many black Americans have refused to sign up for trials because they do not want to be ‘guinea pigs’ for vaccine trials because of the country’s history of racism in medical research. They cited the Tuskegee experiments of 1932-1972 that recruited 600 Black men – 399 who had syphilis and 201 who did not – and followed the progression of the disease by not treating the men while they were dead or had serious health problems.