This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Michael Phillips, MD
New York Medical College Staten Island

JAMA. 1992;267(23):3150-3151.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—Can racial research be "racist" if it results in major clinical benefits to a minority group?

A recent Lancet editorial observed: "For many clinical scientists the painful fact is that there are many physiological differences between black and white hypertensives."¹ Careful studies of these differences (which may be both genetic and environmental in their origin) led a Joint National Committee to conclude that blacks respond better to diuretics and calcium antagonists than to β-blockers or ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme) inhibitors.^2,3 These findings should be of great benefit to black hypertensive patients and may help them to live longer and healthier lives.

Also, there are racial differences in drug metabolism: rapid acetylation is much more common in Orientals than in blacks or whites.^4,5 This information has benefited Orientals suffering from tuberculosis, since physicians now recognize them as a group at higher risk of isoniazid toxic . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?