The Washington Post reports that despite it’s availability at a local middle school over the weekend, many DC residents declined to access the H1N1 vaccination.
“A lot of the older generation is talking about Tuskegee,” she said, referring to a U.S. government experiment on poor black men that began in the 1930s in Alabama. Their syphilis wasn’t treated once a cure existed, and researchers studied how the men suffered. “I said, ‘Yes, you have to be mindful, but we’ve come a long way.’
“We’re not going to up and run and take the shots when they say to take them,” said J.L. Lawrence, a communications student at Bowie State University. He lives in the District and brought his sons, ages 1 and 2, in for their regular checkups, but not the H1N1 vaccine.
“I compare it to the Cricket store. One morning we woke up, and there was a Cricket store on every corner, like liquor stores,” she said. “The vaccine fell out of the sky. One day we woke up and everyone was saying . . . ‘You must have it. You could die if you don’t get it.’ It came on too fast. If it’s my time, I’m going to die anyway.”
