Quote of note:
Race-based therapy is a "bad idea," said Patricia Davidson, a cardiologist at Washington Hospital Center. For a doctor to employ this type of treatment, the practitioner would have to ask a patient, "How much African American blood do you have" in you? she said. "We have to be very careful with that."
Idiot.
You have to find the physical conditions that this combination of drugs treats (obviously that condition is NOT identified merely by symptoms) and look for that. Because some whte guy somewhere will have the some condition, and wouldn't it be a shame if he died because his doctor was only looking at melanin content to judge the appropriate treatment?
How many illnesses have fever, body aches and upper respiratory problems as symptoms? Why is everyone all surprised that the symptoms of two different problems are the same? If this is seen as some dramatic proof of physical differentiation of races, why doesn't the fact that cancer runs in certain families proof those families constitute a separate race?
Anyway…
A Cure for A Race?
Heart Drug Findings Set Off Ethics Debate
By January W. Payne
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 16, 2004; Page HE01
A study showing that a new drug combination dramatically improves outcomes for black patients with heart failure is expected to lead to federal approval of the medication specifically for that group. While some doctors applaud this development, others question its validity and worry about its ethical implications, fearing it will usher in a wave of race-based drug treatments driven more by marketing than by science.
The study, published in the Nov. 11 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, was halted nine months early when researchers noticed 43 percent fewer deaths among people taking the new drug than among those given a placebo. The test participants were 1,050 people who identified themselves as black, all of whom also took other medications (including diuretics, ACE inhibitors and beta blockers) typically prescribed for heart failure.
