Tina K. Sacks, PhD, Katie Savin, MSW, and Quenette L. Walton, PhD, LCSW
Would you question health decisions made by a 37-year old Black woman whose great-grandfather died in the US Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee?
AMA J Ethics. 2021;23(2):E183-188. doi:
10.1001/amajethics.2021.183.
Developing technologies for personalized medicine may be misused to popularize the idea that one can infer a person’s genetic makeup from observer-defined or self-reported assignment to a race or ethnic group.
An attempt to investigate correlations between race, attitudes, and contraceptive use did not find meaningful associations between race and attitudes about birth control or pregnancy that could influence contraceptive choice.
Patients who use drugs intravenously may be at high risk for relapse, but their situation is no more futile than that of persons with diabetes and coronary artery disease who smoke and frequent all-you-can-eat buffets.