In our career as pulmonary doctors and intensive care, we have witnessed a revolution in the treatment of asthma, a disease that affects one in 12 American. More recent drugs make it possible to reverse the course of the disease and bring people with serious asthma discount.
These new treatments mean that no one should die from an asthma attack. However, we continue to see patients with potentially fatal thrusts in the intensive care units where we work. Terribly, 10 people die asthma daily in the United States.
For what? More specifically, why are some patients with severe asthma prescribe new drugs more than others? And what is the influence of breed or sex on respiratory health?
In recent weeks, studies that would help us answer these questions and other questions about health equity have been presented attack of the federal government for their alleged ashamed agenda and unlocking. They were censored in a word.
The censorship of research on how to provide treatments to the most in need is not only absurd; He puts life in danger and undermines American leadership in medical innovation. Progress cannot occur if scientists cannot ask certain questions. This is not how science works.
The assault against science began on January 20, when Diversity, equity and inclusion Federal government programs have been explicitly ended. A few days later, the researchers noticed that the Food and Drug Administration had Discreetly deleted advice On the recruitment of patients with various history for clinical trials. And at the end of January, disease control centers and prevention scientists were invited to freeze the publication or even retract The articles submitted for publication to check if they contained newly prohibited words as “gender”. Online tools to navigate public health databases such as the CDC behavioral risk factor monitoring system have disappearedThe researchers are snouts and the meetings to examine the subsidies at the National Institutes of Health were canceled, then reprogrammed, then again canceled.
The most alarming is the effect that these executive decrees will soon have on patients. Research on health actions has already revealed striking disparities in the results of asthma. Black Americans are Three times more likely to die Asthma as white patients, with the most death observed in black women.
These patients are significantly sub-represented In clinical trials of asthma, which does not know if current treatments are the most effective options for them. They are also Less likely to receive The potentially vital new therapies we have. If we don’t understand how to get Good treatments to patients Who need it most, our attempts to reduce death will not be short.
Research on health inequality has tangible advantages. During the first covid-19 waves, we took care of seriously ill patients. Chelsea, Mass., A Hispanic predominance community near Boston, had a mortality rate more than three times that of Boston. Recognizing the effect of social factors such as the size of households, poverty and linguistic barriers, public health workers have adapted their community commitmentlead Chelsea to have one of highest vaccination rate in the country for a city with its demographic data.
This type of research on health disparities could now be deemed illegal by the federal government. And it seems that scientific censorship will not stop there: the administration sends a warning directed to all kinds of Other medical researchAlso. Work linked to the effects of climate change on human health can also soon be on blocking, as is infectious diseases develop their global scope.
Recently, the cases of devastating fungal pneumonia have arisen in our uses, because climate change has widened the scope of fungi such as Blastomyces And Coccidioides. Without recognizing the role of climate change in the food of fungal pathogens, doctors can ignore critical diagnoses. (On its website, the CDC says that its explanator on the climate and fungal diseases is “be modified to comply with President Trump’s executive orders. “)
Federal investment in American research and open scientific dialogue have been the vital element of medical breakthroughs, modifying the perspectives of patients not only with asthma but also with cystic fibrosis, lung cancer,, Diabetes and heart failure. The recent dam of administrative decrees will only serve demoralize Health agents, stifle innovation, compromise clinical trials, delay the development of new treatments and harm our patients.
There are several generations, Dr. Rashel Israelson, the great-grandmother of Dr. Rabin and a pioneering Soviet endocrinologist, were denounced during the Stalin anti-cosmopolitan campaign For the crime of citing Western scientific sources in his thesis. She lost her laboratory and her freshly published book was cremated in the Institute’s boiler room.
Almost 80 years later, our work also feels in danger. The question is: will the words of the government police and will they obstruct research, or will do doctors work to work freely in the name of health?
Jehan Alladina and C. Corey Hardin are pulmonary doctors and intensive care at the Massachusetts General Hospital; Dr. Alladina is also a deputy professor and Dr. Hardin associate professor at the Harvard Medical School. Alexander Rabin is an associate professor clinical of pulmonary medicine and criticism at the University of Michigan.
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