Should Black Americans Still Be Leary of Clinical Trials?
Facts are facts, without higher levels of participation among African Americans, we will never unlock the root causes of the disparate impact of illnesses, diseases, and ailments plaguing black communities today. Every day that African Americans continue to live in fear of such trials is another day that we fall further behind in the fight against early deaths and diseases.
Yet, studies show Black Americans continue to distrust medical research and clinical trials, apparently a lasting legacy of the infamous Tuskegee experiment which was shut down more than three decades ago.
But it’s like a double-edged sword:
1. We don’t want to be in clinical trials because of the major distrust of the American health systemB
2. But we need to be in clinical trials to see if any new treatments can help us as well.
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Such attitudes are keeping minorities from participating in current clinical trials that could save their lives, the researchers added.
“We found that minorities are 200 percent more likely to perceive harm coming from participating in research,” said senior study author Dr. Neil Powe, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.
While previous studies had shown that black Americans and other minorities are less likely to be enrolled in clinical trials, this study helps explain why.
“This is new knowledge, obtained with appropriate methods in a large sample,” said Dr. William Cunningham, a professor of medicine and public health at the UCLA School of Medicine. “This study provides direct evidence that distrust of researchers explains the lower participation of blacks in cardiovascular prevention trials research. This looks like an important study.”
“This provides a database to support what we think is going on with respect to concerns of
