Number of minority researchers at NIH drops

Minorities may suffer disproportionately from a wide number of afflictions, but they are noticeably lacking among the ranks of the top research groups in the country. According to a recent survey, blacks make up 1 percent of the tenured and tenure-track researchers at the country's top 50 academic research centers. And that performance is reflected at the NIH, according to a commentary in The Scientist, which counts 1 percent of its tenured investigators and 1.5 percent of its tenure-track positions as African-American. Ten years ago, 2 percent of the NIH's researchers were African-American. That shortage is seen as a drag on the NIH's mandate to overcome health disparities in the U.S.

The number of African-Americans getting PhDs in the biological sciences has grown from 78 in 1994 to 136 in 2001. Among Hispanic Americans the number of PhDs grew from 131 to 164 and the number of tenured Hispanic investigators grew from 17 to 24.

- here's the commentary from The Scientist

ALSO: An African-American stem cell scientist at MIT has gone on a hunger strike after his appeal to be given tenure was denied. Colleagues denied that the decision was based on racism. Report

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