If you're black and suffer from heart failure, you've probably heard the bad news.
Blacks are twice as likely as whites to suffer from the disease and twice as likely to die from it.
An Addition, Not a Substitution Particularly confounding for doctors, blacks don't respond as well to popular heart drugs that are more effective in white patients. Soon, though, that could all change. The drug, BiDil, is believed to be the first government-approved medication that will be developed and marketed specifically for a racial group. The upcoming clinical trial to test BiDil, which will include only African-Americans, is a milestone. Historically, prescription drugs have been developed based on research on white males.