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Year:: 2011
Contributor:: Roberts, Dorothy E. (Author)
Subject:: genetics; pharmaceuticals; pharmacogenomics; FDA; race-based medicine; biopolitics of race; cardiology; personalized medicine

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Abstract:: In this article, legal scholar Dorothy Roberts uses the hypertension drug “BiDil” - the first pharmaceutical approved by the FDA to be marketed to a single ethnic group (African Americans) - as an example to explore the pitfalls in the development and marketing of race-based pharmaceuticals, and how it may lead to the further perpetuation health inequality. Despite the lack of scientific evidence to support the efficacy of BiDil in African American populations (and race-based medicine in general), it was approved. Roberts argues that this could in turn become a justification to lower the bar of the standards that the FDA uses to evaluate new drugs - specifically for minority. She outlines how the development of BiDil was primarily driven by profit interests of the pharmaceutical industry, rather than by motivation to address disparate rates of hypertension in the African American population. She discusses how to combat the notion that advocating against drugs like BiDil is causing more harm to minority communities who could benefit from “personalized” treatment after years of injustice in the medical system, by presenting facts about the harm that such science can cause. Finally, the author concludes by demonstrating the political danger of race-based medicine: by focusing on race-specific genetic differences, we will ignore the well-documented social determinants of health and the impact of racism on society.

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Roberts, Dorothy E., "What's wrong with race-based medicine?: Genes, drugs and health disparities" (2011). Medicine and Race: AMS Annotated Bibliography. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:841706/

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Medicine and Race: AMS Annotated Bibliography

This annotated bibliography was created to serve as a resource for medical students, residents, and faculty interested in learning more about how race is used in medicine and how racism results in disparate health outcomes for racial and ethnic minorities. …

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What's wrong with race-based medicine?: Genes, drugs and health disparities