Name Barbara Justice | ||
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Barbara J. Justice-Muhammad is a forensic and clinical psychiatrist as well as a surgical oncologist. The first African-American woman to be trained in general surgery at Columbia University Medical Center. She has worked at Harlem Hospital, Abundant Life Clinic and at Memorial Sloane Kettering sites in New York. She is well known for her long-running New York radio show, Medical View and You, and was honored in 1996 when Mayor David Dinkins proclaimed a citywide Barbara Justice Day for her contribution to the health of the community.
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Biography
Justice received a BA form the City University of New York, and did Post BA/ Pre Med studies at both Columbia University and Connecticut College. Upon attaining her MD from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington DC in 1977, she had an interest in pursuing both surgery and psychiatry, and intended to eventually practice both. While at Howard, she became pregnant with her son, Kamao Justice Douglas, but refused to quit school.
Justice never joined the Nation of Islam in 1994. She states that she felt isolated until she received support from the Nation of Islam and people began to think that she had actually joined when she began researching the origin of the AIDS virus with medical members of the organization.
Career
Dr.Justice advocated vigorously for the National Institute of Health to focus on better treatments for the AIDS epidemic that was ravaging the Black and Gay communities. The high dose, ill-conceived Zidovudine (AZT) treatment was causing patients to rapidly decompensate and die. She eventually became an investigative researcher for NIH after becoming involved with a search for better treatment. Many felt that origin and handling of AIDS required investigation in light of historical data on contagious diseases and the institutional mishandling of deadly biologics. An example was the Tuskegee Study, where Black patients who had syphilis were left untreated to spread the virus for more than thirty years. Many in the Black community and others felt that AIDS might be a "plot to exterminate blacks," and theorized that greater amounts of melanin in the black population "made them more vulnerable to AIDS." In August 1990, Dr.Justice, along with Gary Byrd, visited Nairobi to learn more about experimental treatments for AIDS. Dr. Justice, along with her colleagues, worked with the National Institutes of Health in 1992 to set up trials for oral interferons to treat AIDS. In her treatment of AIDS, she advocated the use of oral interferons, such as Kemron, in order to treat AIDS. According to a Nation of Islam doctor, 82% of the patients with AIDS who were treated with interferons at the Abundant Life clinic "experienced increased appetite and other improvement." Dr. Justice also arranged for AIDS patients in New York to go to Nairobi in order to receive Kemron treatments. Dr.Justice believed that other treatments, such as AZT, were actually poisons. Despite the NIH's criticism of Kemron, Dr.Justice continued promoting it, feeling that there was a reluctance to explore and include black research. She also believed that the "white conservative medical profession" needed to deal with the fact that statistically, more black people were infected with AIDS worldwide than other groups. She is referenced in the autobiography of Arthur Ashe when he described his battle with the deadly disease.
Dr.Justice treated many notable people for many different illness. Not just the AIDS virus. She was Stokely Carmichael's personal physician. She treated him for a duodenal ulcer in 1988 and Carmichael called her a "kindred spirit." Later, she diagnosed him with cancer. As surgeon, Dr. Justice was the attending physician at Tupac Shakur’s first shooting and oversaw his recovery.
Honors and awards
New York City Mayor David Dinkins names "Barbara Justice, M.D." day