Case Western Reserve University bioethics professor Dr. Suzanne Rivera was interviewed regarding the need for involving more diverse populations in clinical studies and research.
Dr. Rivera oversees research practices locally and on a national level. She explains how scientists avoided using diverse populations in studies for many years because of past abuses.
As a result of historical abuses such as the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment, African Americans in particular have a distrust of the medical community. The Centers for Disease Control calls it an unethical 40-year government study where hundreds of black men were never given penicillin so researchers could see how the disease progressed.
Researchers in Cleveland — and nationally — struggle to get people of color to undergo invasive procedures for research. The lack of diversity of participants is a big problem, said Dr. Rivera.
“That white male body was treated almost like the prototypical human,” Dr. Rivera said. “And whatever information was derived from studies based on that population were assumed to be broadly applicable to everyone. Recently, the National Institutes of Health and university researchers and ethicists have been emphasizing that inclusion of all populations is important.”