BACK of the BOOK
Heard in the Blogosphere
Roxana Daneshjou, MD, PhD
@RoxanaDaneshjou
I’m not worried about #machinelearning or #AI replacing
physicians. I am worried about physicians pushing back on
tools that may actually be useful due to unfounded fears. We
have to work together to figure out what tools will work.
Mike Natter, MD
@mike_natter
There seems to exist an inverse relationship between things
carried and level of medical training:
Black Patients Miss Out on Investigative
Cancer Drugs
A recent ProPublica analysis found that minority groups are substan-
tially underrepresented in clinical trials of investigational drugs. Clinical
trialists and regulators spoke about the scarcity of minority patients
enrolled in trials and the implications for new drug development.
“[Minority patients] are potentially losing out on life-extending op-
portunities because it’s one more option they no longer have. Especially
when patients are in advanced stages of cancer, treatments are like
stepping stones: When one stops working, you move on to the next.
[Not joining a trial can mean] you’ve lost life expectancy.”
—Kashif Ali, MD, research head at Maryland Oncology Hematology
“[The issue] is not elevated high enough in the discussion on clinical
studies. [Increasing minority enrollment requires] a public-private part-
nership, working with the FDA and NIH.”
—John Maraganore, PhD, CEO and director of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals
“[Inadequate minority representation means] we aren’t doing good
science. If we aren’t doing good science and releasing these drugs out
into the public, then we are at best being inefficient, at worst being ir-
responsible. … [Drugs should] work for the individuals who are the most
vulnerable. That necessarily includes racial and ethnic minorities.”
—Jonathan Jackson, PhD, founding director of the Community Access, Recruitment and Engagement (CARE)
Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Norman “Ned” Sharpless, MD
@FDACommissioner
Excited to join Team #FDA as Acting Commissioner. Like the
rest of the hard-working staff at FDA, I’m fully committed to
protecting and promoting the public health.
“[There is a] lack of excitement among minority communities for
clinical trials, coming from a mistrust of the medical community. The
medical community has to engage in some serious trust-building
initiatives.”
—Angela Marshall, MD, an internal medicine doctor and board member of Black Women’s Health Imperative
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Combating “Dr. Google”
Follow ASH and ASH Clinical News on:
@ASH_Hematology, @BloodJournal,
@BloodAdvances, and @ASHClinicalNews
Facebook.com/AmericanSocietyofHematology
@ASH_Hematology
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ASH Clinical News
“As is true with fake news in general, medical lies tend to spread further
than truths on the internet – and they have very real repercussions.
… Doctors and nurses frequently try to discourage their patients from
turning to the internet for answers. And yet patients will continue to
Google their symptoms and medications because the internet doesn’t
require an appointment or a long wait, it is not rushed, it doesn’t judge,
it doesn’t require a hefty copay, and it often provides information that
seems simple to understand. … To have any chance at winning the
information war, physicians and researchers need to weave our science
with stories. This is the only way to close the wedge that has opened up
between medicine and the masses, which is now being exploited by mer-
chants of medical misinformation.”
—Haider Warraich, MD, on the dangers of fake medical news, in The New York Times
June 2019