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“When everything seems bleak, we know that someone somewhere is full of hope and strength and wants to act,” reads one ad, showing a series of black people. “Walk and roll up your sleeves to get back to normal sooner.”
“Volunteer to find the Covid-19 vaccine. Help end the uncertainty,” says the voiceover.
Another ad shows a couple lulling a video of their newborn grandson in Spanish.
The daughter of the couple looks at the camera.
“I wonder when they will get to see him,” he says in Spanish.
Vaccine trials (there are three ongoing in the United States) need more minorities to sign up. Dr. Larry Corey, who leads the group that posts the ads, said he knows the ads won’t instantly increase enrollment, but hopes they will help.
“Not everyone is thinking about how they could play a role in ending the pandemic,” said Corey, who heads the Covid-19 Prevention Network. “The goal of any advertising is to reveal choices, to reveal choices.”
The ads were developed by the Covid-19 Prevention Network, which is based at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and two ad agencies, Socialisssima and Sam Bonds Creative. The ads are scheduled to begin airing Tuesday on major television networks, as well as BET, Oprah Winfrey Network, TV One, Telemundo and Univision.
Why Clinical Trials Seek Minority Volunteers
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has urged that about 37% of volunteers in clinical trials of the coronavirus vaccine be Latino and 27% be Black.
So far, enrollment has not reached that level.
The researchers have two reasons for wanting to improve on these numbers.
Vaccines and drugs can work differently in different racial and ethnic groups, so diversity in clinical trials is important.
In addition, for clinical trials of the vaccine to be successful, scientists must recruit people who have a high probability of encountering the virus. Otherwise, researchers will have to wait longer to find out if the vaccine works or not.
Ads are not enough
Pastor Ricky Temple, who leads a large black church in Savannah, Georgia, said he found the ads “moving.”
“I think these are great. Pointing to the arm was an elegant invitation to participate, which was engaging and personal,” she said of the ads, which include Black and Latino bus drivers, teachers, nurses, students, parents and grandparents.
Inspired by Dawn Baker, a Savannah television news anchor who in July became the first person to enroll in a phase 3 coronavirus clinical trial in the US, Temple asked her church leaders how she did. felt by encouraging members of the congregation to join in the rehearsals.
The answer was a resounding “no”.
“It was a fear-based response centered on lack of confidence, and it’s to my left, it’s to my right, it’s everywhere,” Temple said.
Historically, the black community has been hesitant to join clinical trials due to past abuses in medical trials and ongoing injustices in the healthcare system. Black study subjects were horribly abused in the Tuskegee syphilis trials from 1932 to 1972, and blacks still face injustices and disparities in today’s medical system.
Temple said President Trump increases that mistrust when he says a vaccine could be ready by Election Day, which experts say would be too quick and scientifically incorrect.
Temple said the announcements won’t change all of this, but they are “a good start” for building trust in medical research within the black community.
“You take off, take off, take off, and one day people will not remember all the bad things that happened. Tuskegee will be back somewhere and we will think that those people are no longer with us and now there is a new crew,” he said.
