Black communities have faced racist medical treatment for centuries, prompting distrust in healthcare professionals.
Cervical cancer patient Henrietta Lacks’ cells have been used in research for decades even though she never gave consent. In the infamous Tuskegee experiment, hundreds of poor Black men were denied access to adequate syphilis treatments or lied to about their treatment so researchers could study the disease’s progress over four decades.
But it’s not easy for Black patients who feel more comfortable with Black doctors to find them. Only about 5% of active physicians are Black, according to the latest available data, and insurers have ...