In our careers as pulmonary and critical-care doctors, we have witnessed a revolution in treating asthma, a disease that affects one in 12 Americans. Newer medications make it possible to reverse the course of the disease and bring people with severe asthma into remission.
These new treatments mean that no one should die of an asthma attack. Yet we continue to see patients with life-threatening flare-ups in the intensive care units where we work. Shockingly, 10 people die of asthma daily in the United States.
Why? Specifically, why do some patients with severe asthma get prescribed the newer drugs more than others? And what is the influence of race or gender on respiratory health?
In recent weeks, studies that would help us answer these and other health equity questions have come under attack from the federal government for their “wokeness” and “shameful” agenda. They have, in a word, been censored.
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Censoring research on how to deliver treatments to those most in need isn’t just nonsensical — it puts lives at risk and undermines America’s leadership in medical innovation. Progress cannot occur if scientists are barred from asking certain questions. This is not how science works.
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The assault on science began on Jan. 20, when diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government were explicitly ended. Days later, researchers noticed that the Food and Drug Administration had quietly removed guidance on recruiting patients with diverse backgrounds for clinical trials. And by the end of January, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists were instructed to freeze publication, or even retract, articles submitted for publication, to check if they contained newly forbidden words like “gender.” Online tools for navigating public health databases such as the Centers for Disease Control’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System have disappeared, researchers are being muzzled and meetings to review grants at the National Institutes of Health have been canceled, then rescheduled, then canceled again.
These new treatments mean that no one should die of an asthma attack. Yet we continue to see patients with life-threatening flare-ups in the intensive care units where we work. Shockingly, 10 people die of asthma daily in the United States.
Why? Specifically, why do some patients with severe asthma get prescribed the newer drugs more than others? And what is the influence of race or gender on respiratory health?
In recent weeks, studies that would help us answer these and other health equity questions have come under attack from the federal government for their “wokeness” and “shameful” agenda. They have, in a word, been censored.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Censoring research on how to deliver treatments to those most in need isn’t just nonsensical — it puts lives at risk and undermines America’s leadership in medical innovation. Progress cannot occur if scientists are barred from asking certain questions. This is not how science works.
Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.
The assault on science began on Jan. 20, when diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government were explicitly ended. Days later, researchers noticed that the Food and Drug Administration had quietly removed guidance on recruiting patients with diverse backgrounds for clinical trials. And by the end of January, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists were instructed to freeze publication, or even retract, articles submitted for publication, to check if they contained newly forbidden words like “gender.” Online tools for navigating public health databases such as the Centers for Disease Control’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System have disappeared, researchers are being muzzled and meetings to review grants at the National Institutes of Health have been canceled, then rescheduled, then canceled again.
