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Several scientists are concerned about racial bias in federal funding of medical research. Using National Institutes of Health data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, researchers find persistently lower approval levels for grants filed by minority researchers, as compared to white applicants. The issue has major implications for America’s health and how its tax money is spent. (Garrison, 11/20)

What kind of care do you want at the end of your life? Stanford University researchers put that question to members of three major ethnic groups in the San Francisco Bay area and found little variation in their responses. “There is a common humanity – people want to live as long as they have good quality of life. When it is their time, they want to be consulted so they die in a way that they are respected, and they don’t want their families burdened,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. V.J. Periyakoil, director of the Stanford Palliative Care Education and Training Program and associate director of palliative care services at the VA Palo Alto Health Care Center. (Feder Ostrov, 11/23)

On Tuesday, and again in January, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee will consider whether to recommend approval of two drugs to slow the muscle deterioration at the root of Duchenne [muscular dystrophy]. If approved, the medications would become the first treatments for a condition that affects an estimated 1 in 3,500 boys. “It’s really a momentous time,” said Louis Kunkel, a Harvard geneticist, credited with discovering the gene behind Duchenne, who has long helped search for treatments. “For years, we’ve been able to do nothing for these families and their children. . . . I thought we would have cracked this nut a long time ago.” (Dennis, 11/21)

A panel of health experts is calling for sweeping changes to the way infectious disease threats are managed, saying a bungled response by the World Health Organization and others to the West African Ebola epidemic exposed dangerous vulnerabilities. In a frankly worded report published online Sunday in the scientific journal The Lancet, the panel proposed 10 changes, from expanding oversight of epidemic response beyond the WHO to creating economic incentives that would prod countries to report, rather than try to hide, disease outbreaks. (McKay, 11/22)