Check Out the Role of Immigrant Arab and Muslim American Physicians and Scientists in the COVID-19 Response
By: Dr. Raed Al-Naser, M.D., F.C.C.P./Arab America Contributing Writer
It is time to acknowledge the role of immigrant Arab and Muslim American physicians and scientists in our nation’s COVID-19 response.
COVID-19 has pushed the US healthcare system to its limits. During this unprecedented need for skilled health care workers, the system would have suffered enormous setbacks and likely collapsed if it were not for the genuine dedication of immigrants, alongside native-born colleagues. Data from the Association of American Medical Colleges shows that immigrant doctors make up more than 50 percent of geriatric medicine doctors and nearly 40 percent of internal medicine and critical care doctors, treating and caring for the most vulnerable COVID-19 patients in hospitals and long-term facilities nationwide.
The Trump administration has made it extremely difficult for foreign-born medical professionals and scientific experts to come to the United States in the last four years. Arabs and Muslims were doubly targeted by these policies.
The H-1B visa program allowing companies to hire foreign technical talent was crushed by the past administration. Additionally, the restrictions on the H-1B visa program, the Muslim immigration ban made it literally impossible to have talented medical professionals from countries like Syria, Iran, and others to fill jobs in high demand hospitals and clinics across the nation.
Ironically, it is the H-1B visa program that allowed Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the chief of Operation Warp Speed, to lead the scientific efforts on COVID-19 vaccines and develop in record time the most promising tool to end the pandemic. Dr. Slaoui is an Arab Muslim born in Morocco.
Ordinary western citizens may not be aware that Arab and Muslim physicians and scientists have historically led in preventive medicine and the origins of vaccines.
Lady Montagu, the wife of the English ambassador in Istanbul between 1716 and 1718, was struck by the effectiveness of smallpox inoculation that was a routine practice throughout the Ottoman Empire (North Africa and parts of the Middle East). She had her own son inoculated by embassy surgeon, Charles Maitland. She wrote about the procedure in detail and upon her return to England advocating inoculation to protect against smallpox. After a long period of hesitancy, inoculation was adopted in England and later in France, nearly half a century before Edward Jenner was credited for the invention of vaccines (vaccination refers to Jenner’s use of cowpox in the inoculation; in Latin vac means “cow”)
The contributions of Muslim and Arab immigrants in Europe and the United States fighting against COVID-19 are nothing less than stellar. The Moroccan born Dr. Moncef Slaoui’s leading role in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine is admired by Americans across the political divides of politics. The Turkish Muslim husband-and-wife team of Dr. Ugur Sahin and Dr. Ozlem Tureci, who founded the German biotechnology company BioNTech, partnered with the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to develop the never before used mRNA vaccine to prevent COVID-19. Lebanese Armenian American Noubar Afeyan, the co-founder and chairman of Moderna, and Lebanese American, François Nader, former president of Moderna, are among many entrepreneurs paving the road for safe and effective therapeutics and vaccines. Dr. Bechara Choucair, who received his M.D. from the American University of Beirut, will serve as vaccine coordinator for the Biden administration.
Here in California, a Minnesota-born physician with Egyptian parents, Dr. Mark Ghaly, is the Secretary of the California Health and Human Services Agency. Dr. Heitham Hassoun, a Lebanese American physician and leading international health expert, is overseeing the distribution of COVID-19 vaccinations in Los Angeles. Dr. Mohammad Al-Janabi, Pulmonary and Critical Care physician who came to the United States as a refugee from Iraq, is one of hundreds of highly qualified Arab American physicians on the frontlines treating COVID-19 patients in San Diego County.
Immigrant physicians, pharmacists, scientists, and other workers have always played an important role in supporting and sustaining the function of the healthcare system. In fact, immigrant doctors have even taken the role of serving rural and underprivileged communities where medical care is needed the most. These doctors are also more likely to serve African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities.
From scientific labs to hospital bedsides, the former Trump administration policies have inflicted significant harm to our health system and will continue to do so in the future if these policies and restrictions are not reversed.
President Joe Biden has acted on his promise to lift the Muslim ban and implement immigration policy changes that will rescind the regulations on the H-1B program imposed by former president Trump. We are anxiously looking forward to the quick restoration of immigration policies that will benefit all Americans.
Raed Al-Naser, M.D., F.C.C.P., is a pulmonologist and critical care physician, practicing primarily at Sharp Grossmont Hospital, and the president of San Diego Chapter of National Arab American Medical Association (NAAMA).