One effect of comparative effectiveness: it locks in racial disparities in the treatment of chronic illnesses that lead to higher rates of death among African-Americans. Cost containment is achieved by letting minorities die more often.
Gene Variant Protects Black Heart Failure Patients
MONDAY, April 21 (HealthDay News) — Researchers have discovered a gene variant carried by about 40 percent of blacks that protects them after heart failure as much as widely used beta blocker drugs do.
The finding explains the puzzling results reported in trials of beta blocker therapy in black people, said Dr. Stephen B. Liggett, a professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Maryland, and co-author of a report in the April 20 online issue of Nature Medicine.
"To our knowledge, this is the first case where a genetic variant mimics the activity of a drug used to treat a disease," Liggett said.
The finding won't have an immediate effect on treatment of heart failure, the progressive loss of ability to pump blood that affects an estimated 5 million Americans, said study co-author Dr. Gerald W. Dorn II, director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics at Washington University in St. Louis. Doctors can continue to prescribe beta blockers for people with heart failure, black or white, since the drugs have little risk, he said.
But there should be an effect on future medical practice, Dorn said. "One idea in the future of drug discovery is that we will not only need to tailor therapy for individual genetic makeup but also take genetic makeup into consideration in drug testing," he explained.
Comparative effectiveness is completely ignoring such advances and the life saving benefits they bring. Remember Nitromed?
In this case people with the variant might not need a beta-blocker or as high dose. Those without will need it, Still other variations might lead to developing other regimens.
Liggett noted: “Our idea is not to replace the physician's judgment, but to give a handle on which drugs they might want to push to higher levels and which are less likely to be helpful for specific individuals.”
Unlike population-based comparative effectiveness which ignores individual differences that – for African Americans suffering from diabetes, hypertension and breast cancer – could mean life and death.
Which is why comparative effectiveness is just Jim Crow medicine unless it’s put on a personalized path.
