Report: New Alzheimer's Drugs Might be Less Effective for Ethnic Minorities
The Facts
On Monday, leading Alzheimer's experts reported that promising new treatments for the disease — which work by removing a toxic protein called beta-amyloid from the brain — may benefit white patients more than Black and Hispanic patients.
According to researchers and pharmaceutical executives, though older black Americans and Hispanics have higher rates of dementia than white people, they were excluded from clinical trials as the prospective subjects reportedly didn't have enough amyloid in their brains to participate.
The Spin
Narrative A
Pharmaceutical companies developing groundbreaking treatments for Alzheimer's are aware of and working to understand why Black and Hispanic individuals have been underrepresented in clinical trials. Both Eisai and Lilly have vowed to reflect the population's makeup in their next trial enrolment, as every American deserves to access new treatments for the neurodegenerative disease.
Narrative B
It's nonsensical that the next hope to freeze the progression of Alzheimer's disease is anti-amyloid drugs, when minorities with symptoms of the disease have been screened out of trials precisely because they had relatively low levels of the toxic protein in their brains. Black patients have higher risks of brain hemorrhaging and tend to be diagnosed too late for treatment to be effective; devising effective treatment for minorities should be better prioritized.