FDA can do more to en­sure di­ver­si­ty in clin­i­cal tri­als, ex­perts say — in­clud­ing some con­struc­tive bad­ger­ing

The Covid-19 vac­cine and ther­a­peu­tic de­vel­op­ment races have opened many eyes to the re­al­i­ty that clin­i­cal tri­als in the US rarely in­clude the ap­pro­pri­ate num­bers of eth­nic and racial mi­nori­ties. And even when they some­times get close, as with Mod­er­na’s vac­cine, the tri­al had to be de­lib­er­ate­ly slowed to re­cruit ad­di­tion­al Black and His­pan­ic par­tic­i­pants.

Ex­perts con­vened on Mon­day as part of a work­shop at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ences, En­gi­neer­ing, and Med­i­cine, and dis­cussed whether the FDA might take a more promi­nent role in ad­vo­cat­ing for more di­ver­si­ty, among oth­er top­ics to in­form the on­go­ing work of the Na­tion­al Acad­e­mies Com­mit­tee on Im­prov­ing the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Women and Un­der­rep­re­sent­ed Mi­nori­ties in Clin­i­cal Tri­als and Re­search.

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