Replies

I don't really see the relevance of the race of doctors, in almost any context. They certainly as a group, are not effective advocates in the public square, or anywhere else for that matter, Frist to the contrary notwithstanding (with McDermott to the contrary of the contrary notwithstanding). Heck, that isn't even the road to big bucks anymore. Stock brokers make more - well at least they did until the music stopped.

*African Americans are nearly five times more likely than white Americans to say they distrust their doctor, according to the results of a national telephone survey.

Regardless of social class, more blacks than whites believed that their doctor would ask them to participate in a study that would cause harm and would use them as "guinea pigs" without their consent.

Black patients were also more likely to agree that their doctor would expose them to unnecessary risks when deciding which treatment to use, and to say that a doctor had given them treatment as part of an experiment without their permission.

It is not clear why African Americans are more apt to distrust doctors, but it may stem in part from the infamous study at Tuskegee, Alabama, in which US researchers allowed African-American men to suffer with syphilis despite the availability of an effective treatment.

Regardless, the findings may lend support to researchers who say they have a hard time recruiting African Americans into clinical studies, researchers point out in the November 25th issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

They suggest that researchers who are interested in working with African Americans remain involved in the community on an ongoing basis, rather than only when recruiting patients for studies.

About 37% of blacks said they thought their doctor would ask them to take part in medical research that might harm them, compared with less than 20% of whites. And more than 79% of blacks agreed that they, or people like them, might be used as guinea pigs without their consent, compared with 52% of whites.

When it came to providing treatment, nearly 46% of blacks said their doctor sometimes exposed them to unnecessary risks, compared with about 35% of whites. About 25% of blacks said their doctor had ever given them a treatment as part of an experiment without obtaining consent, compared with 8% of whites. And 42% of blacks did not trust that their doctor would fully explain research participation, compared with 23% of whites.