Black researchers face only about two-thirds of the chance of white ones of receiving federal medical research dollars, even with equal training and research records, according to a new analysis of grant winners.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials responded that they view the finding as a serious problem and promised to take steps to make up for the shortfall.
"Not acceptable. This data is deeply troubling," NIH chief Francis Collins said at a briefing. "The problem has been there all along. Now we know about it and have to do something."
In the study released Thursday by the journal, Science, researchers led by Donna Ginther of the University of Kansas looked at 83,188 applications for new "principal investigator" — or heads of laboratories — grants from 40,069 researchers from 2000 to 2006.
