Some critics of the studies accuse the researchers of suggesting that biological differences underlie, and therefore reinforce, the social concept of race, implying genetic differences between races that may not exist. It's not valid science. The controversy stirred by the new work goes beyond questions of how to conduct epidemiological studies. The heart-medicine trials are the most recent example of how attributing health differences to race may be less simple than it seems. Statistically, the higher rate of heart failure among black people is undeniable, and black patients fare worse, with twice the death rate of white patients.
Heart failure occurs when the heart pumps too weakly to deliver enough oxygen to the body.
More than half of all heart-failure patients die within five years of being diagnosed, and nearly five million Americans have the syndrome. Clyde W. Yancy had noticed a racial disparity in his patients, and he wondered whether the two groups would respond differently to heart medication. An associate professor of internal medicine and cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dr. Yancy had been involved in a 1996 clinical trial of a drug called carvedilol, one of a class of heart drugs called beta blockers. The treatment, given to 1,094 research subjects, about one quarter of whom were black, proved so successful that the researchers stopped the trial early. To analyze racial differences in the already-completed trial, Dr. Yancy teamed up with researchers at several other universities and at GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of carvedilol under the brand name Coreg.