From the Washington Post news section:
Kizzmekia Corbett spent her life preparing for this moment. Can she create the vaccine to end a pandemic?
This 34-year-old African American woman scientist is a rarity. But with increased visibility comes increased scrutiny.by Darryl Fears, May 6, 2020 at 11:57 a.m. PDT
… Bradsher’s recommendation put Kizzmekia Corbett on a path that ultimately led her to the National Institutes of Health, where she is heading the government’s search for a vaccine to end the coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 1.2 million Americans, killed over 70,000 and devastated the economy. …
But her high perch comes with more visibility and added scrutiny.
On Feb. 27, Corbett posted a tweet that lamented the lack of diversity on President Trump’s coronavirus task force: “The task force is largely people (white men) he appointed to their positions as director of blah blah institute. They are indebted to serve him NOT the people.”
And, as public health officials were reporting startling data that showed that the virus was disproportionately killing African Americans, Corbett vented on Twitter. “I tweet for the people who will die when doctors has to choose who gets the last ventilator and ultimately … who lives,” she wrote March 29. When someone responded that the virus “is a way to get rid of us,” Corbett replied: “Some have gone as far to call it genocide. I plead the fifth.”
That triggered a response from Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who read several of Corbett’s tweets aloud on his show and questioned her “commitment to scientific inquiry and rational thought.” He accused Corbett of “spouting lunatic conspiracy theories.” …
“I don’t think there’s anything she said that’s outlandish that goes against any type of code or standard,” said Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University in Houston.
“What I’ve seen parade across that stage in the task force, other than the surgeon general, are all white people,” said Bullard, who is black. “To look and see these horrific disproportionate numbers of African Americans dying of coronavirus vindicates her tweet. She knew this virus would be like a heat-seeking missile that would target the most vulnerable.”
Corbett’s tweet about the ventilators reflects a long and painful history of disparity in medical care and health outcomes experienced by African Americans, Brooks said. One of the most notorious episodes, which sowed deep distrust in the medical establishment, took place from 1932 to 1972, when the U.S. Public Health Service allowed syphilis to progress in black men without their knowledge, denying them treatment with penicillin.
Also, redlining. And don’t forget Emmett Till.
Long after that experiment ended, studies have shown white doctors spend more time with white patients than those who are black and prescribe different treatments. Life expectancy for African American men and women is shorter than for non-Hispanic whites, according to the federal government.
And life expectancy for Hispanics is longer than for non-Hispanic whites. And Asians outlive Hispanics. But all those extra facts are confusing, so let’s just focus on how anything bad that happens to blacks is due to Racism by whites.
… Corbett’s team completed the first clinical trial for the development of a vaccine in early March. Working at a furious pace at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, the team hopes to have a vaccine by the middle of next year.
“She’s one of the hardest workers I know,” said Freeman Hrabowski, president of UMBC, where Corbett studied as an undergraduate from 2004 to 2008. “People don’t know how hard she works. She is an extraordinary human being with a passion for science and helping people.”
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County under Freeman Hrabowski actually does have a strong track record of eliciting high black achievement, according to a 2000 essay by La Griffe du Lion.
