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Clinical trials in need of diversity in Connecticut
African Americans and other minorities are at a higher risk for certain types of cancer, yet they continue to be underrepresented in clinical trials for drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Even though a 1993 law requires all medical research funded by the National Institutes of Health to adequately include minorities, a study by the University of California, San Francisco, found that less than 2 percent succeeded in enrolling enough minority participants.
Dr. Roy Herbst, chief of medical oncology at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital, said, “The national average is woefully low,” adding that at Yale, “minorities make up well over 10 percent of the [cancer] clinical trial participants.”
Source: New Haven Register