PROFESSIONPolitics charged in disparities reportTrying to stay above the fray, a former AMA president, Alan Nelson, MD, says health care disparities exist and must be confronted.By Andis Robeznieks, amednews staff. Feb. 2, 2004. Democrats claim that the Bush Administration manipulates science for political purposes, administration officials deny it, and a past president of the American Medical Association is caught in the middle. The controversy involves the recent U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Report on health care disparities. U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D, Calif.) charges that the report's executive summary was watered down, with serious problems downplayed and minor successes overemphasized. Waxman released an analysis comparing the final version of the report's executive summary with a draft completed in June, showing that 28 mentions of the word "disparity" were removed from the final version; a conclusion stating that health care disparities "are national problems" was deleted; and a passage listing disparities relating to cancer, HIV and cardiac care was replaced with a reference to low use of cholesterol tests. AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy, MD, however, said that although changes were made to the executive summary, none of the data included in the report were "changed, altered or modified whatsoever." She added that the report included information on 300 different disparity measures, so "there's no way an executive summary could cover it all." Waxman's report quotes remarks by Alan Nelson, MD, a former AMA president, who also chaired the Institute of Medicine committee that produced the 2002 report "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care." [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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