CNN Health reported on May 9, “Black Americans represent 13.4% of the U.S. population…but counties with higher Black populations account for more than half of all COVID-19 cases and almost 60% of the deaths.
In Minnesota, where health disparities were already criminal, Kris Ehresmann, MDH infectious disease director, told MinnPost in late April that “African American residents made up 13% of the known cases of COVID-19 at the time.
In early April, he told French National Institute of Health and Medical Research director Camille Locht on French television channel LCI, “Shouldn’t we be doing this study in Africa where there are no masks, no treatment, no intensive care, a little bit like we did in certain AIDS studies or with prostitutes?”
The experiment for which African Americans were used by the United States Public Health Service as lab rats to research venereal disease is still a part of the collective subconscious of Black people in this country.
If there was any time for Black health professionals to step in and lend a hand, that time is now.
