Empowered Patient Podcast Encouraging and Facilitating Diverse Participation in Clinical Trials with Dr. Eddilisa Martin Neighborhood Trials
Dr. Eddilisa Martin is the CEO and Founder of M & B Sciences, which has created the Neighborhood Trials online platform and app available in the Apple Store and the Google Store. Their mission is to drive more diversity in clinical trial participation by providing accessible information to patients, providers, and caregivers looking for therapies and opportunities for trials.
Eddilisa explains, "When we talk about diversity, people most often think of race and ethnicity. And that's very, very important. But diversity means having representation across a whole spectrum of things. So whether that's age, whether it's your sexual preference, whether you live in the country versus the city, whether you have lots of comorbidities, lots of illnesses in conjunction with the disease that's being tested, or whether that's the only thing you have. There are a whole host of things that we're talking about when we say diversity."
"But you hear people talk about their hesitancy to be a guinea pig. And so it really does help people to understand that things have changed from the way they used to be. People hear horror stories from years and years ago, but they don't realize all of the protections that are in place for patients now. So the FDA committee has oversight. There are all of these safety committees that are involved in every single clinical trial. There's a safety committee that's looking at results as they are going, so they're not waiting until the end of the trial and seeing if there are different side effects that are popping up. They're measuring that on an ongoing, continuous basis."
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