FDA Approves First Race Specific Drug (moved from ATSNN), page 1

The drug BiDil was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday. BiDil is the first race specific drug as it was shown in clinical study to be most effective when taken by African Americans who had been diagnosed with heart failure. The drug is a milestone in what industry analysts call 'personalized medicine.'

www.washingtonpost.com
For example, Magnus said, researchers could also look at whether a particular drug worked more effectively on Catholics than Protestants. The more categories explored, the more likely one can find data showing that one category of people is helped more than the others when it comes to a particular medicine, he said.

Based on those results, NitroMed Inc. of Lexington, Mass., launched a study of 1,050 blacks with severe heart failure. Half of them got standard heart failure drugs and a placebo; the other half got standard drugs plus BiDil. The study showed a 43 percent reduction in deaths and a 39 percent decrease in hospitalizations compared with a placebo, and the study was stopped ahead of schedule last year when doctors saw BiDil clearly was better.

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Personalized medicine seems to be the future....and that is a great thing! The more we understand about the genetic structure, the more we can accurately pinpoint and direct efforts to sustain human life beyond the current threshold.

The only problem I can foresee, really, is the usual one. Money. The more specific we get, the more capable we are of helping everyone. So where does the line get drawn with regards to the professional and medical obligations of all parties involved.

A program that should be completely revamped in anticipation of impending medicinal advancement is our national healthcare.......