Congress Seeks to Increase Minority Participation in Clinical Trials

"Every time you take a prescribed medicine, you know it's been tested by hundreds, even thousands of volunteers. You may not know that most of those volunteers are white," "All Things Considered" co-host Michele Norris said Monday in the introduction to a story on the launch of two new federal programs designed to increase the numbers of minorities who participate in clinical trials.

Rachel Jones reports that 1.5 million people will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Of that number, approximately 3 to 5 percent will participate in clinical trials -- and less than one percent of that number will be African American, despite the fact that African Americans have among the highest death rates from cancer in the country.

Listen to the full segment here.