Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates? • Hacker News Board

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#21

Post by Infinitesimus » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:35 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #16

refurb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dude is trying too hard. The rationale is simple “the govt is clearly willing to harm a group of people so why should I trust them?” It’s not that the vaccine is another example of minorities being targeted, it’s an example of where the govt say “trust us” and minority groups have a bit more historical awareness where the govt said that and lied.

> I would guess that awareness of the Tuskegee Experiment and black history more generally is greater among those with higher education than those with lower education. If this guess is right, then knowledge of historical racist medical abuses is actually strongly correlated with getting the vaccine.

That's a big if and amusingly detached. Consider the oral history of the Tulsa massacre and how many "educated" people didn't know about it.

There's is a lot of weight coming from a grand parent telling you "hey, this bad stuff happened back in my day so you can't trust these folks" vs reading it in a book and that's hard to quantify.

Fwiw I do think there are other factors at play more related to general socioeconomic issues. They just might also correlate strongly with race, zip code and a bunch of stuff.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#22

Post by civilized » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:36 AM UTC

Talanes wrote: post #20

civilized wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would guess that awareness of the Tuskegee Experiment and black history more generally is greater among those with higher education than those with lower education. If this guess is right, then knowledge of historical racist medical abuses is actually strongly correlated with getting the vaccine.

That's way too big of a hypothetical to make any of the statistics derived from it worth anything.

Bruenig is just being humorously understated here. Obviously more educated people are more likely to know history. Come on.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#23

Post by Talanes » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:37 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #18

Talanes wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would guess that awareness of the Tuskegee Experiment and black history more generally is greater among those with higher education than those with lower education. If this guess is right... He's starting with an assumption that disregards any factors that could make the hypothesis he's trying to disprove correct, and so of course the statistics come out in his favor.

If you read the post, he actually starts with a couple simple observations that show why the theory is ridiculous. It's a very short post. About a two minute read. No guesswork needed about assumptions he's making, you can just read the post for yourself.

I've read the post. I'm not guessing at the assumptions he's making, I'm saying they're ridiculous. He had six paragraphs, and somehow completely lost the thread halfway through.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#24

Post by 1024core » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:39 AM UTC

cbzbc wrote: post #15

ISTR some states are asking people for their insurance details - and while refusing to give details or being uninsured won’t preclude you from getting the vaccine, I could understand how that would could act as a disincentive to poorer folk to getting vaccinated.

That was because most insurance plans cover the vaccine, and the states wanted to save some money; if insurance covers your vaccine, why not bill the insurance company, eh?

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#25

Post by Talanes » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:39 AM UTC

civilized wrote: post #22

Talanes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's way too big of a hypothetical to make any of the statistics derived from it worth anything.

Bruenig is just being humorously understated here. Obviously more educated people are more likely to know history. Come on.

I'm not sure how that's obvious? School isn't where I learned about the Tuskegee experiment, so why would I assume that's the primary way people learn about it? That's a claim that actually needs some data to back it up.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#26

Post by Animats » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:39 AM UTC

forz877 wrote: post #10

civilized wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, it's a single guy challenging the conventional wisdom we hear pervasively from the prestige media with some very simple, obvious reasoning and basic data. He deserves some credit for that.

I have not seen this reported anywhere in the media, could you share some links?

Data from Feb. 2021: [1] Note that the sample is from Los Angeles County, CA only.

Later data from US Census Bureau surveys.[2] While the Census Bureau did not summarize vaccine hesitation, race, and educational level, they offer downloads of the entire data set of poll replies. (192MB, CSV format), so you can do that yourself. Next data set available August 11th. Good project for big data people.

[1] https://news.usc.edu/182848/education-covid-19-vaccine-safet...

[2] https://public.tableau.com/views/HouseholdPulseSurveyCovid-1...

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#27

Post by dudeinjapan » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:40 AM UTC

newacct583 wrote: post #19

This doesn't seem like a hard question to answer. Black americans are underserved by the health care system in basically all other ways. They see fewer doctors, have fewer clinics in neighborhoods where they make up majorities, get fewer referrals from the same doctors, get discharged faster and receive less treatment for the same conditions... I don't have links, but studies like this are everywhere. So, to me the q…

Access to clinics is not the limiting factor here. One can get a vaccine in 10 minutes by walking into any Walmart, Walgreens, or CVS. Even barbershops are giving them.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#28

Post by dcow » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:41 AM UTC

Either the government should have swiftly mandated total lockdown and vaccination, or they should not have said a tweet about covid response and delegated to medical professionals and scientists. The real tragedy is that covid and vaccines have even entered the political sphere of discourse in the first place. Act swiftly with the best interest of your people at heart and face consequences later, or let the virus win while we bicker over mask mandates. All we have now is a bureaucratic mess.. truly a tragedy of the commons.

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#29

Post by golemiprague » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:45 AM UTC

I am pretty sure there are differences between various groups within the same skin colour (blacks), with a different skin colour as long as it is not part of any of the other mentioned groups (whites), from the same continent as long as as their eyes are squinted (Asians) or within people who speak a language derived from Latin as long as they are positioned south to the US (Latinos).

Why Americans think that those arbitrary parameters are on the same scale that we even compare them or that they matter more than other parameters?

Re: Does the Tuskegee experiment explain black vaccination rates?

#30

Post by civilized » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 3:47 AM UTC

Talanes wrote: post #25

civilized wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bruenig is just being humorously understated here. Obviously more educated people are more likely to know history. Come on.

I'm not sure how that's obvious? School isn't where I learned about the Tuskegee experiment, so why would I assume that's the primary way people learn about it? That's a claim that actually needs some data to back it up.

I think this is pretty straightforwardly what any social scientist would expect, but if we must have data, see Figure 4 of https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3221924/#!po=29...