“Change will come. It will come when women and ethnic minorities are better represented in research funding bodies and academic research departments, provided that those people are willing to speak out (BMJ opinion by Partha Kar: If you won’t speak up, how will the world know you exist? doi:10.1136/bmj.p2051). It will come because the public, and therefore politicians, will no longer accept the status quo of a costly research enterprise engineered primarily for the benefit of white men. It will come in the selfish realisation of people who reinforce the inequalities hardwired into medical research that eradicating inequalities in health and research also benefits the dominant group.“
This is the third post in a small series based on a recent BMJ editorial “Under-representation of women in research: a status quo that is a scandal” by Kamran Abbasi, in which he writes about the failings of medical research.