Clinical trials need more minorities
At her 33rd appearance as Subject 16019 in a clinical trial of an experimental drug she hoped would fix "this little problem with my memory," Sandra Brannon sank into a medical exam room 's recliner and waited. "What's the date again?" Sandra asked me. I had escorted her to a wing at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan, where the NYU Langone Medical Center was among 210 institutions worldwide conducting the trial. As a family friend, I was standing in for Sandra's only child and chief caregiver, who had business elsewhere that morning. "November 18th," I answered. I'd responded to the same question from Sandra four times during our 27- minute subway ride to a stop a few blocks from Bellevue. "Right. Got it." Sandra scribbled my reply on her cheat sheet as a nurse bounded through the door to prep her for her monthly intravenous infusion of solanezumab, which Eli Lilly developed to target mild cognitive impairment caused ...