Prayer and science led me to the vaccine

Polls show that African Americans of all groups have the greatest hesitation about the Covid vaccine. These concerns are rooted in centuries of abuse and in illegal and unethical experiments by the nation’s medical establishment. In the 19th century, James Marion Sims, the man considered the father of modern gynecology, conducted dozens of experiments on enslaved women without anesthesia. The infamous “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male” continued into the 1970s.

The health care results are also not encouraging. African Americans have twice the infant mortality rate as whites. African American women are more than three times more likely than their white counterparts to die from pregnancy-related causes. The breast cancer death rate is 42% higher for black women than for white women. My father died when I was just 16, largely due to misdiagnosed and mismanaged hypertension. During the pandemic, troubling news reports emerged about disparate treatment in U.S. health facilities.

Unfounded rumors of an attempt to use the vaccine to exterminate the black community have won money among my fellow African Americans. I understand the common mistrust, but the painful truth is that blacks need the vaccine more than anyone else. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say we’re nearly three times more likely than whites to die from Covid.

As a minister, I personally witnessed these deaths. I buried many friends and Church members. At the height of the pandemic, I regularly received reports of two or three deaths a day. I struggle to comfort and counsel their survivors, most of whom couldn’t be in the same room with their loved ones when they took their last breaths. Over the weekend, I lost an old friend and colleague to the virus. But I believe that the God who led us through slavery, Jim Crow, the Spanish flu, and lynching can also get us through this crisis.

As a father, grandfather, pastor and community leader, I understood the importance of understanding the vaccine. That meant getting the facts early on from the most qualified scientists and doctors. A panel discussion that I hosted in early January with a number of leading infectious disease experts – including Anthony Fauci, Kizzmekia Corbett, and Yale medical professor Onyema Ogbuagu – provided an in-depth look at the vaccine development process. Particularly helpful were the details provided by Dr. Corbett, a young black woman and leading scientist behind the development of Moderna’s new mRNA vaccine.

I received invaluable advice from my old doctor, a black woman and a member of my church who received the vaccine herself. Believing in the multitude of counselors, I have also spoken to several of the leading infectious disease specialists here in the Dallas area, a metropolis that is home to many world-renowned healthcare facilities.

Ultimately it boiled down to common sense. I am a 63 year old black male, slightly overweight and with an underlying health condition. The vaccine has been proven to reduce the chances of people like me getting the virus. To date, the side effects of the vaccine have been minimal or nonexistent. It is true that no one knows about possible long-term side effects. But here’s what we do know: The virus has killed more than 500,000 people in this country alone, but the vaccine has yet to kill one more person. In addition, there is a lot of information about persistent debilitating symptoms in those who survive the virus.

I don’t consider myself a supporter of taking the vaccine. That is a personal decision. But you shouldn’t make a critically important personal decision without information – or bad information. At a time when the line between fact and fiction is gradually eroding, it has never been more important to prevent people from being influenced by misinformation or the countless untruths that spread across the internet.

Here’s my unsolicited counsel: do your own research. Pray. Consult multiple reliable sources, from your personal physician to federal agencies such as the CDC. Your earnest search for the truth can save your life – and your loved ones.

Bishop Jakes is the senior pastor of Potter’s House, a church of 30,000 members in Dallas.