Now outside of medical circles, I could be wrong, but the name “Frances Collins” is not one that frequently popped up in the news when COVID wreaked havoc on us not that long ago.
And likewise, chances are slim that he’s mentioned at all as a key science contributor in the annals of African Amerian history. Dr. George Washington Carver, yes! Dr. Charles Drew, yes! Dr. Frances Collins, no!
Well, let’s launch into the rest of this narrative with some stage setting questions.
First, remember the “Tuskegee experiment,” the 40-year study in Alabama that initially involved 600 Black men, including 399 with syphilis who were left untreated even after treatments were available? Feel free to step away from this piece and research this issue if it escapes your memory. (And while you’re at it, plug the name Dr. Frances Collins into you search engine).
Second, remember when COVID burst onto the scene when, in response, vaccines were developed at lightening quick speed?
Third, remember the term “vaccine hesitancy,” when folks balked at getting vaccinated, many of them African American? More on “vaccine hesitancy” further down.
Well, the point I’m getting to here is that one of the people who worked to be sure that people of color – Black folks in particular – overcame vaccine hesitancy and were included in trials for effective vaccines was Staunton, Virginia’s (yep, my hometown) Dr. Francis Collins.
You see, because of the nuttiness of segregation, Collins attended all-white Robert E. Lee High School; yours truly all-Black Booker T. Washington High School two miles across town. But that’s another story, one that tells itself.
Okay, curious about how I found out about Dr. Collins and his role in finding cures for infectious diseases? Well, his name is mentioned many times in Dr. Anthony Fauci’s recent New York Times bestseller, “On Call,” a splendid story of Fauci’s career of caring for and finding cures for people worldwide infected with HIV/AIDS, Ebola and, most notably, COVID. To this day Collins and Fauci are longtime friends and colleagues.
Now among the biggest obstacles Drs. Fauci and Collins faced – among them misinformation, quack remedies (don’t laugh but remember bleach and hydroxychloroquine?) was how to overcome vaccine hesitancy by African Americans in light of a shameful history of health injustices and inequities.
So, let’s deep dive into Dr. Collin’s background.
Collins was born and raised in Staunton, coincidently the birthplace of President Woodrow Wilson. What he referred to as his “formative education” was received at the University of Virginia, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry. He went on to obtain a Doctor of Philosophy in physical chemistry at Yale University in 1974 and later enrolled in medical school at the University of North Carolina where he earned a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1977. Dr. Collins served as director of the NIH (National Institute of Health) from 2009 to 2021, serving under three presidents.
Before being appointed director of the NIH, Collins led the Human Genome Project and other genomics research initiatives as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, one of the 27 institutes and centers at NIH. He earned a reputation as a gene hunter and was elected to the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science.
Dr. Collins has written books on science, medicine and religion, including the New York Times bestseller, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
Building on his own experiences as a physician volunteer in a rural missionary hospital in Nigeria, Collins today remains very interested in opening avenues for genome research to benefit the health of people living in developing nations. For example, he helped establish an initiative called Human Heredity and Health in Africa to advance African capacity and expertise in genomic science.
In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI appointed Collins to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In February 2022, he joined the Cabinet of Joe Biden as Acting Science Advisor to the President.
When asked recently during an interview for at least one regret he had after announcing that he was stepping down from the NIH, Collins cited the persistency of vaccine hesitancy.
“I don’t think I anticipated the degree to which the tribalism of our current society would actually interfere with abilities to size up medical information and make the kinds of decisions that were going to help people.
To have now 60 million people still holding off on taking advantage of lifesaving vaccines is pretty unexpected. It does make me realize, “Boy, there are things about human behavior that I don’t think we had invested enough into understanding.” We basically have seen the accurate medical information overtaken, all too often, by the inaccurate conspiracies and false information on social media. It’s a whole other world out there. We used to think that if knowledge was made available from credible sources, it would win the day. That’s not happening now.”
In the end, the irony of life is that even he, Dr. Frances Collins, a world recognized expert in science and medicine, is not immune from a disease having been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer earlier this year.
So, here I am today, four years removed from having personally experienced COVID months before effective vaccines were developed, yet thanks in some small part to the work of Drs. Frances Collins and Tony Fauci, I’m alive and was able to have written the piece you’re now reading.
Now tell me, how cool is that?
Terry Howard is an award-winning writer. He is a contributing writer with the Chattanooga News Chronicle, The American Diversity Report, The Douglas County Sentinel, Blackmarket.com, recipient of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award, and third place winner of the Georgia Press Award.
