Originally published September 4 2005
Racial inequality still rampant in U.S. healthcare system
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Numerous recent studies show that the fight to end racial inequality in health care in the U.S. has only just begun, and some call for a stop to simply documenting the disparity and a start to fixing it.
In America, you get worse health care if you're black.
We've talked about changing this situation for more than 20 years.
Since the mid-1990s, we've tried to do something about it.
For some kinds of medical care, it is getting worse.
The third study offers a ray of hope -- but still shows that the fight to end racial inequality in health care has only just begun.
"It is time to stop documenting disparities and turn our efforts to doing something about them," writes NEJM editorialist Nicole Lurie, MD, MSPH, director of the RAND Center for Population Health and Health Disparities.
Heart attacks kill them 11% more often than they do white men.
These sobering findings come from Emory University researcher Viola Vaccarino, MD, PhD, and colleagues.
The researchers combed through data on some 600,000 patients who had heart attacks between 1994 and 2002.
National programs have been established," Vaccarino tells WebMD.
"We thought that, over time, we would see decreasing disparities in treatment for heart attacks.
... But we found that there were differences by race, and also by gender, that remained constant."
The differences include lifesaving treatments, including what doctors call reperfusion therapy.
That's when doctors restore blood flow to the heart using techniques such as the use of clot-busting drugs or balloon angioplasty.
Not all heart attack patients need the same treatment.
So Vaccarino's team carefully sorted through patient records.
They compared only patients who would be ideal candidates for each type of treatment.
* Heart angiography -- using dye injections to get critical information about blood flow to the heart -- was used 9% less often in white women, 18% less often in black men, and 24% less often in black women.
All content posted on this site is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech. Truth Publishing LLC takes sole responsibility for all content. Truth Publishing sells no hard products and earns no money from the recommendation of products. NaturalNews.com is presented for educational and commentary purposes only and should not be construed as professional advice from any licensed practitioner. Truth Publishing assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material. For the full terms of usage of this material, visit www.NaturalNews.com/terms.shtml