A national meeting to discuss ways to encourage minorities to join medical clinical trials will be held February 23-25 in Tuskegee, AL, the site of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study which involved 400 impoverished African-American men.
The seminar is organized by the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) and sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Office of Research and Women's Health, National Institutes of Health. It will be held in Tuskegee to emphasize that such studies will never be done again. RTOG is a national cancer research organization sponsored and funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and administered by the American College of Radiology (ACR). It is made up of more than 200 leading medical facilities across the nation and Canada.
Because of fears generated by the Tuskegee experiments, where the 400 men were left untreated by U.S. Government scientists to examine the effects of the disease, African Americans have been reluctant to take part in other clinical trials. NCI has reported that while African Americans make up 15 percent of the population, only 2-4 percent of those participating in cancer prevention trials are African Americans.
One purpose of the seminar, which will involve federal officials, African- American oncology experts and other health care professionals, is to educate the medical community about race and cancer treatment results. The other is to encourage African Americans and other minorities, including women, to participate in clinical studies.
Overall, African Americans have poorer cancer survival rates than Caucasians. But those African Americans who are treated in clinical trials have the same cancer survival rates as whites, according to published studies.Therefore, it is often in the best interest of African Americans with cancer to enter clinical trials, according to RTOG investigators.
Among those speaking at the seminar will be Dr. Louis Sullivan, former secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and Dr. Vivian Pinn, director of the Office of Research on Women's Health.
Following the seminar a report summarizing the clinical trials recruitment plans outlined at the meeting will be distributed to the public and media later this year.
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