This article, published by Gale Health and Wellness, highlights the social issues of the ongoing research and testing controlled by the FDA. As studies have shown, since the arrival of COVID-19 to the United States, there is a disproportionality between deaths from COVID-19 in majority white groups versus racial minorities such as Black, Latinx, and Native American. This article describes the types of testing and how patients were selected at random to take part in the study. Although death rates among the aforementioned minority groups are high regarding COVID-19 transmission, the article argues that they were underrepresented in the clinical trials. Thus, the study consisted of mostly white patients who were less susceptible to dying from the coronavirus. Detailed in the article are several explanations for the lack of diversity, such as; mistrust of minority communities, cost, and implicit bias. Finally, the article calls for standardization of reporting on different races and ethnicities present in the trials, and the importance of “appropriate random sampling,” specifically as it pertains to BIPOC and the most vulnerable communities.
