podcasts
Podcast: Fighting for care and representation in clinical trials: a conversation with Ricki Fairley and Nirzari Parikh
May 20, 2026
Health equity challenges
Why do people of color experience worse outcomes in cancer? How can they be better represented in clinical trials? Evan sits down with Ricki Fairley of TOUCH, The Black Breast Cancer Alliance, and Nirzari Parikh from Avalere Health, to work through the issues of health literacy, trial design, patient “fear of the sugar pill,” increasing patient self-advocacy, and more—told against the backdrop of LaToya Bolds Johnson’s story of fight and survival with stage 3C triple-negative ductal carcinoma.
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Chapters
0:00 – The patient story
6:00 – The 3% problem and fixing the information pipeline
11:50 – Real-world barriers to clinical trials
18:50 – Increasing the visibility of trials as a treatment option
25:30 – Self-advocacy and redefining the doctor-patient contract
34:20 – Where health literacy meets AI