Flu fighters combat vaccination fears in New Haven Cloe Poisson :: C-HIT.ORG Sharon Stevens, director of Women of the Village Food Pantry (right) asks a client picking up food at the Dixwell neighborhood food pantry if they have gotten the flu vaccine yet, on Tuesday, December 15, 2020. Stevens is one of several outreach workers helping to encourage New Haven residents to get the vaccine. On a recent Friday evening, 30 men and women of color in and around New Haven converged on Zoom to share their thoughts about the flu vaccine. Most were apprehensive. Participants said they worried about contracting the flu from the vaccine, that the danger from the flu vaccine is far greater than catching the flu, and that people of color are again being experimented upon by the medical community. “Our trust levels are really low,” one woman at the online event said. “We think it’s just another way of getting to harm us even further.”