Amid Criticism, NCI Tries To Boost Minority Clinical-Trial Recruitment

Clinical-Trial Recruitment 'PLEASANT SUPRISE': NCI's Otis Brawley notes the racial makeup of treatment-trial patients was not planned. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the largest of the National Institutes of Health, proudly touts its record of recruiting minorities into clinical trials it supports. "We have incredibly good representation of minorities on treatment trials," maintains Otis Brawley, senior investigator in the Community Oncology and Rehabilitation Branch of NCI's Division o

Myrna Watanabe

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Clinical-Trial Recruitment

'PLEASANT SUPRISE': NCI's Otis Brawley notes the racial makeup of treatment-trial patients was not planned.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), the largest of the National Institutes of Health, proudly touts its record of recruiting minorities into clinical trials it supports. "We have incredibly good representation of minorities on treatment trials," maintains Otis Brawley, senior investigator in the Community Oncology and Rehabilitation Branch of NCI's Division of Cancer Prevention and Control. NCI director Richard Klausner concurs, declaring that "for treatment trials, [minorities] are represented proportional to their percent for the disease."

Yet many scientists who work with minority communities doubt the strength of NCI's commitment to ensuring the inclusion of minority subjects in institute-sponsored research. They contend that these groups not only should be included in trials in proportional numbers, but also should be full participatory partners in the research protocols.

"Until we rely upon minority communities to instruct ...

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