Racial Considerations In Medicine
There are legitimate considerations of race. For example, factoring in a patient’s race when determining whether to prescribe certain medications and what dosages to recommend are legitimate uses of race.
Dr. Sally Satel says she takes race into account when diagnosing patients, despite criticism:
“Almost every day at the Washington drug clinic where I work as a psychiatrist, race plays a useful diagnostic role. When I prescribe Prozac to a patient who is African-American, I start at a lower dose, 5 or 10 milligrams instead of the usual 10-to-20 milligram dose. I do this in part because clinical experience and pharmacological research show that blacks metabolize antidepressants more slowly than Caucasians and Asians. As a result, levels of the medication can build up and make side effects more likely. To be sure, not every African-American is a slow metabolizer of antidepressants; only 40 percent are. But the risk of provoking side effects like nausea, insomnia or fuzzy-headedness in a depressed person–someone already terribly demoralized who may have been reluctant to take medication in the first place–is to worsen the patient’s distress and increase the chances that he will flush the pills down the toilet. So I start all black patients with a lower dose, then take it from there.”
We know that some diseases are more prevalent among certain racial groups. Sickle cell anemia, for instance, more commonly occurs in people of sub-Saharan Africa and their descendants, while cystic fibrosis is more common among Northern Europeans and their descendants. Additionally, blacks respond better to the heart drug BiDil than whites. The drug dilates blood vessels and replenishes a molecule called nitric oxide. For some reason, says Satel, “blacks are more likely than whites to have nitric oxide insufficiency.”
Whether cultural or genetic, some diseases and conditions affect one racial group more than others. When crafting civil rights initiatives, Ward Connerly included medical exemptions to racial consideration bans.
Check out this slide show of race-based medicine.
So, why would a race preferences opponent support race-based medicine? The answer is simple. Factoring in a patient’s race when diagnosing and treating illness is not even in the same neighborhood as a government institution hiring or admitting someone based on his race. One involves treating and curing, restoring good health, etc., while the other involves racial discrimination in the pursuit of skin deep-only diversity.
What say you?
