“First ‘black’ drug nears approval”:

A heart drug being tested in black patients is on course to become the first medicine approved for use in a specific ethnic group, challenging those scientists who believe that race is a bad basis for prescriptions. . . .

[The drug] revives controversy about whether, and how, race should be used to prescribe medicines. In the clinic, for example, doctors will have to work out who is classed as African American in a racially mixed population. “It really becomes problematic,” says Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, an anthropologist who studies race in science at Stanford University, California. . . .

Doctors have long known that different ethnic populations can have different susceptibility to diseases or react differently to drugs. Drug labels for the common heart drugs called ACE inhibitors note that they may be less effective in black people. . . .

I like the dueling quotes (though I have no idea how fair they are): (1) “I still think skin pigment is a lousy predictor of heart function.” (2) “We hold the trump card: it works.”

Thanks to GeekPress for the pointer, which also includes Paul Hsieh’s commentary on the issue (Paul is a physician).