The presidents of two traditionally black universities, one Catholic and the other Protestant, announced that they were examining the COVID-19 vaccine.
Preaspectnt C.Reynold Verret of Xavier University of Louisiana and Preaspectnt Walter M.Kimbrough of Dillard University said Wednesday (September 2) that they were in the Ochsner Health System Phase 3 trial.They said they won injections and reported and monitored any side effects or symptoms.
Ochsner Health said in July that it is one of 120 sites in the world that planned to recruit up to 30,000 trial participants, one party receiving the vaccine and the other a placebo.Neither researchers nor patients will know what they have received.
“To defeat the virus, effective vaccines will require the availability of effective vaccines for all the peoples of our communities, especially our black and brown neighbors,” the two men wrote in a letter to teachers and academics in their institutions.Significant numbers of black and brown subjects are of paramount importance for the effectiveness of these vaccines to be included in the many diverse populations that make up those United States.”
Xavier is a Roman Catholic and Dillard is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ.
The two presidents, whose schools are in New Orleans, encouraged members of their educational communities and other establishments to participate in a COVID-19 vaccine trial.
“When we checked in, we were fully informed and all the imaginable dangers that would exclude us from the exam were revealed,” they said in the letter.”Or we’re fine.”
Aware that other people question participation in such research, they noted that there are now regulations to advise medical studies.
“As HBCU presidents, we don’t forget the unethical examples of medical research,” they said.”We don’t forget Tuskegee’s examination of syphilis, which abused and harmed African-Americans and others of color, undermining acceptance as true with fitness providers and caregivers.
A leader from Washington, D.C., also announced his participation in a trial similar to the search for a vaccine to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, the head of Ohev Shalom, an Orthodox synagogue, tweeted about his role in the trial and appeared in a Washington Post video explaining what is happening in the study. Writing in Hebrew, he tweeted his thanks to God for his participation in the trial.
“Boruch Hashem, I won my moment dose of the vaccine for the covid-19 clinical trial,” he said in a Tweet on August 27.”Thank you to Hashem and everyone who paints day and night to this pandemic.”
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld’s first name.
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