“We’ve known for years that certain drugs don’t work on parts of our population,” says Sam Oh, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco Center for Genes, Environment and Health.
[…]
“Only 2 percent of cancer studies and less than 5 percent of pulmonary studies have studied enough minorities to provide useful information,” Oh says.
Because of genetic differences, some people’s bodies process drugs in very different ways. Racial and ethnic categories can serve as a proxy for those differences.
The blood thinner clopidogrel, or Plavix, doesn’t work in the 75 percent of Pacific Islanders whose bodies don’t produce the enzyme required to activate the drug. For them, taking the medication is like taking a placebo.
People with epilepsy who are of Asian descent are supposed to get genetic testing before being prescribed the seizure medication carbamazepine, because the drug can damage the skin and internal organs of patients with a certain gene variant.
And, says Oh, “African-Americans and Puerto Ricans don’t respond as well to some of the most common asthma controller medications, and that’s really a tragedy since these two groups are the most affected by asthma in the United States.”
