Race In A Bottle

Approved by the FDA in 2005, BiDil was originally touted as a pathbreaking therapy to treat heart failure in black patients and help underserved populations. Upon closer examination, Jonathan Kahn reveals BiDil became racial through legal maneuvering and commercial pressure as much as through medical understandings of how the drug worked. Using BiDil as a case study, Kahn broadly examines the distinct politics informing the use of race in medicine and the very real health disparities caused by racism and social injustice that are being cast as a function of genetic difference. Kahn shows that, just as genetics is a complex field requiring sensitivity and expertise, so too is race, particularly in the field of biomedicine.