Dose Of Truth: Is The COVID Vaccine Being Used For Population Control?

There's a lot of false information around about the two leading COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S.  We wanted to provide the facts and answer some questions. 

I'm not a doctor but know a few, so we asked: Is the vaccine being introduced in Africa as a means of population control?

"The vaccine is not being introduced in Africa, especially not to control the population," said Dr. Josh Lesko, Brief19 lead policy analyst.

"There is a history of using various experiments and trials in communities of color, which include, unfortunately, times in which sterilization and what some have deemed efforts of genocide have occurred throughout history as relates to medicine. And so that's where this notion comes from. What we have to promote and educate is that we've come a long way from that. We have regulatory and legal aspects in place to prevent repeating of history," said Dr. Khalilah Gates, pulmonary care specialist with Northwestern Medicine. 

"People may be surprised or maybe even uncomfortable when they hear things like we need to ensure that that Black and Brown communities are vaccinated first. And the reason why there is a discussion about people from these communities being able to have first access to the vaccine is because the Black and Brown communities are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19," explained Dr. Jasmine R. Marcelin, infectious diseases physician with the University of Nebraska Medical Center.