Pandemic spurs quest to enroll more Black Americans in vaccine trials

By Julie Steenhuysen and Nick Brown (Reuters) - Infectious disease doctor Angela Branche needed help. Branche and colleagues at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York were running a clinical trial for a vaccine against the coronavirus, which kills Black people at three times the rate it kills whites - yet it was mostly whites signing up. They needed more African Americans. Unbeknownst to Branche, five miles away in Rochester’s poorest zip code, ordained minister Marsha Allen was planning a door-knocking campaign to educate residents of the mostly Black neighborhood about the vi...