By Tony Jones
MEMPHIS, TN — Nationally respected workplace health expert Dr. Anthony Harris is issuing a plea to black communities everywhere to not let fear of the past jeopardize their future by refusing to take the recently approved Covid-19 vaccine.
Dr. Harris is the Chief Innovation Officer and Associate Medical Director-Onsite Clinical Operations, for WorkCare, a physician directed occupational health outreach company. It helps corporations fight infectious illness in the workplace, and their website lists experience directing workplace battles against the SARS and H1N1 pandemics. He leads their Covid-19 response team.
Featured on CNN and others, Harris’s urgent alarm could not come at a more critical time for Tennesseans, black and white. With terribly ironic timing, on the very same day of our interview, it was learned that First Lady Maria Lee had contracted Covid-19 and the governor’s mansion was placed under quarantine.
Lee has been roundly criticized as being a “no masker” whose virus response has been pitifully inadequate. He announced recently that the quarantine had been lifted.
Even worse, the terrible news followed the release of a report by the COVID Tracking Project that Tennessee was tied with Ohio for leading the world in the number of Covid-19 cases at a rate of more than 1,000 cases per million population.
The miserable achievement escalates. Even as we went to press with Dr. Harris’s heartfelt message, not only has it been revealed that the State of Tennessee would be withholding the state’s first 1,000 vaccines in reserve, the state’s Fiscal Review Committee is holding special hearings after Nashville’s News Channel 5 reported that the state spent $6 million to get out of a no-bid contract Lee had awarded to Utah-based startup Nomi Health, which has no experience with testing procedures.
Luckily, the Memphis & Shelby County Health Department has kept West Tennessee beneath the record rate with clear directives. It recently issued a 30-day safer at home directive carrying a fine for businesses that violate it. Dine in eateries can only allow 25 percent capacity, gyms 50 percent.
The maddening state bulletins underscore Harris’s core message that battling Covid-19 is one fight Black America must accept. Covid-19 has no bounds of racism, deception or illusion guiding its infection rate and we cannot buy into the “mealy-mouthed” lack of will that has brought Covid-19 to the governor’s mansion.
A scan of news sources shows why a direct approach is needed to reach more minority communities. Pfizer, the first to release an approved vaccine, put out a call on its website urging more African American participation. Moderna’s trials have received criticism due to a reported 18% non-white participation rate in its clinic trials. But an article on the Hospitalist website cited them as one of three successful attempts to include minorities. Harris addresses the new wrinkles to the trust gap in this interview.
You state that credible polls from Pfizer, Moderna and the Associated Press cite up to 50 percent of black Americans don’t trust the vaccine process. Does that anger you and why should we trust it?
No. What does make me angry is the history that has yet to be fully addressed by mainstream America concerning the Tuskegee experiments. So, the goal with this pandemic is to educate and communicate what we know is true, and allay the fears of those in the African American community that have an understandably sensible distrust. We can trust the process now because we have transparency not just with FDA (Food and Drug Administration) emergency authorization, but we have more transparency because we have more African American physicians in the clinical process that are our advocates. And not just for this vaccine, for all pharmaceuticals as well. We now have African American physicians that are advocates to study the differences in the affects between African Americans and Caucasians and hold the process accountable.
What is your particular specialty and how does it help you understand the data?
My specialty in Occupational and Environmental Medicine means that I work with large, medium and global sized employers and advise them on work outcomes of clinical exposures and give them strategic insight of how to keep their workforce safe. As the lead physician for our company in the instance of Covid-19 it helps companies stay ahead of the curve and protect their workers, whether from musculoskeletal injuries due to falls, to dangers from chemical exposures. We’re been prominent in preventing workplace transmission since the advent of Covid-19.
That sounds like an offshoot of OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration), which many workforce advocates say has been steadily defunded with the decline of unions, resulting in weaker workforce protections. Your opinion?
I think as an organization that can push legislation it has been effective, but what I think can strengthen OSHA is guidance across the state level because it’s still disjointed procedurally when holding companies accountable. There are some gaps that allow some companies to expose their workers to situations that we don’t recommend in regards to mask wearing. In certain states such as Ohio companies have been using caveats to the process to allow the workers not to wear masks.
How do we strengthen the vaccine acceptance gap in the black community?
It’s very deeply felt in our community, the Latinx and Hispanic communities as well. It’s a global problem. The World Health Organization put out a paper addressing what it called the “information pandemic” regarding the amount of misinformation about the pandemic, and therefore the vaccine. The virus has highlighted the health disparities but also rectifies the greatest opportunity to rectify these discrepancies if we can put our heads down and work on solutions. It’s all about cooperation, adding resources and partnering with local public health systems to bring about these solutions.
Are clinical trials specifically targeting different populations needed?
No. If you’re black or brown you have the same opportunity to benefit from the vaccine. As a front-line worker, I will be receiving mine Dec. 21st.
How can the average person know which vaccine is best for them between the Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca versions?
It should not be incumbent upon the patient and the community member to ask for the right vaccine. Just like with any other pharmaceutical, the healthcare provider should be informed with the expertise to educate individuals what is best vaccine to prevent Covid-19 infections. If you’re 55 and older we know the AstraZeneca vaccine is not the best for you because that group was not included in the clinical studies. The providers need to know the data and the efficacy of the vaccines. The onus should not be upon the community.
Can you give a layman’s breakdown of the differences?
Pfizer and Moderna are MRNA vaccines. They introduce the building blocks for your body to create antibodies against Covid-19. The AstraZeneca follows the classic vaccine pattern of introducing components of the Covid-19 vaccine so that your body develops defenses against the virus. Pfizer’s and Moderna’s vaccine have a significantly lower adverse events profile. Pfizer for example had an adverse rate of 0.4 percent in the clinical studies, which was a placebo trial studying from 18,000 to 40,000 individuals. That’s a very advantageous safety profile. There is a reporting tool that will allow us to track the data.
Does the data you’ve studied give any indication of a return to prior norms?
The number we need to reach in the U.S. is 196 million combining those that have been vaccinated and those that have developed resistance, referred to as “herd immunity”. After the vaccination you will be protected for 90 days, but you can then contract it again, and we want to extend that protection. Time has not elapsed long enough truly understand who and how long people will be immune. We know that 94 percent of people will be protected against Covid-19 after they’ve been vaccinated but that still leaves us with a significant 6 percent rate. We want people to continue to wear their masks and practice social distancing. Chances of transmitting the virus after taking the vaccine is extremely low. We will probably need an annual booster shot.
