Still, the findings of the New York pharmacy study echo other studies that show huge disparities between whites and minorities in health status and access to care. Blacks have shorter life expectancies than whites. They have a higher death rate from cancer. They are less likely than whites to get potentially curative treatment for early-stage lung, colon and breast cancer. When they suffer kidney failure, they are not as apt to be referred for transplants.
Racism is a problem.
If you make a decision not to prescribe a drug because people in this group are more likely to misuse drugs, that's prejudice. You're making a judgment about a person based on the group he's in. Now as surgeon general, he has made it a national priority to reduce the black-white health gap in health care. I'm not interested in pointing fingers. Meanwhile in New York, physicians at Mount Sinai sent a home care team to deliver morphine drugs to the woman with breast cancer.