Black people are trapped between a rock and a hard place when it comes to medical issues.

The most egregious case is the notorious Tuskegee experiment where black men were denied medical treatment for syphilis and simply used to document the natural history as they slowly succumbed to the infection.

This has made many blacks reluctant to engage in the medical system and as a result, we often do not get the health advantages of protective interventions including disease screenings, vaccinations and treatments.

While no vaccine is 100 percent effective, millions of Americans fail to get the vaccine and this results in tens of thousands of people dying every year from the flu, mainly the elderly and people with other medical conditions.

I was stunned a few days ago to read on Facebook that people were making claims that a research study showed that folks who had received the flu vaccine were more likely to contract COVID-19.