Medicine and the racial divide.

The role of race in the cause and treatment of disease has been the subject of much discussion during the past year, in the pages of the Journal and elsewhere. Two Sounding Board articles in this issue of the Journal are the most recent contributions to the debate over whether race — defined broadly as the sharing of a common ancestry — should be considered by those who study disease and patients' responses to treatment. As both sets of authors point out, the subject is fraught with sensitivities fueled by past abuses and the potential for future abuses. But whereas . . .