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MONDAY, Aug. 17, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
Although minorities are paying a disproportionate price in the rate of COVID-19<\/a> illnesses and deaths, they are underrepresented in clinical trials<\/a>, a new study finds.<\/p>\n The researchers call upon the government, medical journals and funders of research to make sure trials include minorities so that the results can be extrapolated to the U.S. population.<\/p>\n In the Adaptive COVID-19<\/a> Treatment Trial involving more than 1,000 patients testing the efficacy of the antiviral remdesivir, only 20% of participants are Black and 23% are Hispanic or Native American.<\/p>\n In the clinical trial funded by the drug’s maker, Gilead, with nearly 400 patients, only 11% are Black and less than 1% are Hispanic or Native American.<\/p>\n “The overwhelming majority of the patients in both of those large clinical trials<\/a> were Caucasians,” said researcher Daniel Chastain, a clinical assistant professor of pharmacy at the University of Georgia’s Albany campus.<\/p>\n “Knowing that African Americans die at a higher rate than Caucasians, can I say that this medication will work in them as well? Yes, they enrolled a bunch of patients and yes they got these data out as fast as possible, but can we use this information to inform treatments in all patients?” he said in a university news release.<\/p>\n
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