Today, there are three hundred eight million citizens of the United States. Thirty-eight percent of these citizens fall into what are known as minority groups. This percentage of citizens is expected to rise twenty-two percent within the next forty-three years. Yet with a growing number of members in the minority group, patient’s rights continues to be an issue. Patient’s rights as defined by HIPAA is “Those basic rules of conduct between patients and medical caregivers as well as the institutions and people that support them.” A major case in patient’s rights began in 1951. In this year, a infamous woman became quite famous to scientist across the world without any permission verbally or over paper. This woman and her family fell into several …show more content…
Meanwhile, the family was not aware until long after, and furthermore did not receive any benefits. Patient’s rights has come a long way since Henrietta’s death; however, it continues to be lacking among minority groups. Medicine has far changed for the better, but the world still struggles to give a fair treatment to minority groups. Many years have passed since Henrietta’s death, and the healthcare system advances everyday. However, as a whole, clinical trials fail to include minority groups. Sometimes the people conducting the societies assume that the schedule and payments for the study would not work for the minority-group patients. When a research study is conducted, subjects from every background must be tested for the drug to be considered safe for everyone. In result, minority groups are not able to participate in the releasing of new antibiotics because a thorough research has not yet been conducted to determine the safety. Denise Grady, in the opinion piece, “In Cancer Trials, Minorities face Extra Hurdles,” written in The New York Times on December 23, 2016 argues that minorities groups suffer from an unfair disadvantage when it comes to cancer