Ad Council taps descendants of Tuskegee Syphilis Study victims for vaccine PSA

As COVID-19 vaccination rates plateau across the U.S., the Ad Council is again ramping up its efforts to encourage people to get shots, this time enlisting several descendants of Black Americans who took part in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study to help ease vaccine hesitation in Black communities. Released today, ads starring Tuskegee victims’ descendants are an extension of the Ad Council’s major pro-vaccine “It’s Up To You” effort—the largest public service drive in the group’s history. The new ads are built for Black audiences, 22% of whom remain on the fence about getting vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to Kaiser Family Foundation research. “In the process of creating multiple campaign elements, what we have heard over and over in the Black community was an overwhelming amount of distrust,” says Kelli Richardson Lawson, founder and CEO of Washington, D.C. creative agency Joy Collective, which helped develop the campaign alongside the Ad Council and COVID Collaborative. “You hear, ‘I’m not messing around with the government,’ ‘I don’t trust the government,’” Lawson says, adding that among Black people she’s met who are hesitant about getting a COVID-19 vaccine, all have universally cited Tuskegee as a core factor in their reasoning. “Even though this was almost 50 years ago, the trauma has really affected many of us. It’s a painful, traumatic experience,” she says. The U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee, colloquially known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or the “Tuskegee Experiment,” was a series of tests carried out by the U.S. government from 1932 to 1972 to study the progression of syphilis when left untreated. Over 600 Black men from the area around Tuskegee, Alabama—also home of the famed all-Black Tuskegee Airmen pilot squadron in World War II—were subjected to abusive medical tests during the 40-year experiment, in which they were left uninformed about their diagnoses and were denied proper care despite the widespread use of penicillin as a syphilis treatment by the mid-1940s. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study continued unchecked until 1972, when the Associated Press first broke the news exposing the government’s “ethically unjustified” conduct, prompting officials to quickly scrap the study and finally provide its victims adequate medical care. The last survivor of the human experiment at Tuskegee died in 2004. A handful of descendants were invited to tell their ancestors’ stories in the Ad Council’s new short documentary that will also provide the material for a series of 60-second TV spots. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Deborah Riley Draper, who was most recently behind the “Legacy of Black Wall Street” miniseries, the “It’s Up To You” campaign spots centered on Tuskegee will run nationwide using 100% donated ad space. “The loving human beings involved in the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee were our fathers, grandfathers, uncles and cousins,” says Lillie Tyson Head, president of the Voices For Our Fathers Legacy Foundation and daughter of study participant Freddie Lee Tyson. “Unfortunately, until recent years, references to their humanity were not detailed in medical research or academic writings, and some information and beliefs about the study continue to be unknown, ill-perceived and misleading,” Head says. (One prevailing myth: that all of the study’s human guinea pigs were poor sharecroppers, when in fact many were local tradesmen and entrepreneurs.) She is one of 10 individual descendants featured in various capacities in the new campaign extension, telling her father’s story and encouraging Black Americans to get vaccinated. Descendants also appearing in the campaign include: former Tuskegee mayor Omar Neal, nephew of the late Tyson; Dr. Kimberly Carr, great-great-granddaughter of participant John Goode; and retired nurse Amy Pack, great-niece of participant Seth Barrow. Beyond the documentary-style commercials, the Ad Council will be continuing its efforts of encouraging COVID-19 vaccinations in communities of color with what Michelle Hillman, the nonprofit’s chief campaign development officer, calls “air game and ground game.” Utilizing everything from town hall events to partnerships with BET to outreach at fraternities and sororities, Hillman says the Ad Council will be “taking this campaign to all the spaces and places where we can reach the Black community,” adding that complementary audio spots for the Tuskegee-related push are also in the works. In addition to the campaign videos, the Ad Council’s new content can be found at www.GetVaccineAnswers.org/Legacy.

Ad Council taps descendants of Tuskegee Syphilis Study victims for vaccine PSA

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