African Americans may be distrustful during the COVID-19 outbreak

Roughly forty million African Americans are deciding minute by minute who to trust during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Associated Press is reporting on whether blacks are ready to put their faith in the government and in the medical field during the coronavirus pandemic. Historic failures in government response to disasters and emergencies, medical abuse, neglect and exploitation have jaded generations of black people into a distrust of public institutions. Some might call it the "Tuskegee effect," referring to the U.S. government's once-secret syphilis study of black men in Alabama that one study shows later reduced their life expectancy due to distrust of medical science. Alabama Public Radio raised this issue during its yearlong investigation of rural health, which was honored with the 50th annual Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. You can listen to that program again at apr.org.