Actor Tyler Perry will receive the coronavirus vaccine on camera to help curb “healthy skepticism” among the African American community.
BET will air the special featuring Perry on Thursday, according to an interview published by “CBS This Morning.”
“If you look at our history in this country, the Tuskegee experiment, Henrietta Lacks, and things like that, it raises flags for us as African-American people,” Perry told Gayle King during the interview. “So I understand why there’s a healthy skepticism about the vaccine.”
Perry met up with doctors to discuss exactly how the coronavirus vaccine works and specifically asked questions about the mRNA technology, according to the interview. (RELATED: Black Doctors Are Trying To Convince More Black Americans To Get Vaccinated Against COVID-19)
“I wanted to understand the technology of it,” he said. “We talked about everything from the Spanish Flu of 1918 to what is happening now to where it came from, but I think my top question was understanding mRNA technology.”
The fact that mRNA vaccines can be developed “faster than traditional methods” worried Perry.
“Things like ‘warp speed,’ I was really concerned because this last administration and all the pressure they were putting on the CDC and FDA, I didn’t feel like I could trust it,” Perry said. “But once I got all the information, found out the research, I was very, very happy.”
A survey published by Pew Research Center in December showed only 42% of African Americans who responded said they would take the vaccine if it was available immediately. The number was low compared to 60% of whites and Hispanics who responded. Meanwhile, African Americans are 1.4 times more likely than non-Hispanics to contract the virus and 2.4 times more likely to die from it, according to the Washington Post.