Barbara Justice

Barbara J. Justice-Muhammad[1] is a forensic and clinical psychiatrist[2] 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,[3] and was honored in 1996 when Mayor David Dinkins proclaimed a citywide Barbara Justice Day for her contribution to the health of the community.

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,[2] 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.[1]

Justice never joined the Nation of Islam in 1994.[1] 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.[4]

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."[5] In August 1990, Dr.Justice, along with Gary Byrd, visited Nairobi to learn more about experimental treatments for AIDS.[6] 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.[7] In her treatment of AIDS, she advocated the use of oral interferons, such as Kemron, in order to treat AIDS.[8] 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."[9] Dr. Justice also arranged for AIDS patients in New York to go to Nairobi in order to receive Kemron treatments.[10] Dr.Justice believed that other treatments, such as AZT, were actually poisons.[7] Despite the NIH's criticism of Kemron, Dr.Justice continued promoting it, feeling that there was a reluctance to explore and include black research.[11] 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.[4] 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.[12] She treated him for a duodenal ulcer in 1988 and Carmichael called her a "kindred spirit."[13] Later, she diagnosed him with cancer.[14] As surgeon, Dr. Justice was the attending physician at Tupac Shakur’s first shooting and oversaw his recovery.[15]

Honors and awards
  • American Psychiatric Association, Minority Fellowship Cultural Research in Psychiatry, 2002[16]
  • New York City Mayor David Dinkins names "Barbara Justice, M.D." Day

Lectures and Presentations
  • Electroconvulsive Therapy: Torture or Relief? Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles Department 95, May 2009
  • The Involuntary Administration of Psychotropic Medication; Landmark Cases and Penal Codes Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Metropolitan State Hospital Norwalk, CA, November 2008
  • Innovative Forensic Teaching Techniques American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Seattle, WA, October 2008
  • Sex, Insanity, Competency and Dangerousness: Forensic Psychiatry Landmark Cases American Academy of Forensic Sciences, Washington, DC, February 2008
  • Pseudocyesis and Violence/Homicide UCLA/Sepulveda Forensic Psychiatry Program University of California Los Angeles, June 2006
  • eriaeDementia Pugilistica Review and Update Harlem Hospital Department of Geriatric Care, Harlem NY, May 2005
  • Recovery of the Impaired Professional Harlem Hospital Center, General Psychiatry Department, January 2005
  • Dual Diagnosis Harlem Hospital Center Department Wide Conference, February 2003
  • Cultural Psychiatry, Community Effect Harlem Hospital Center, General Psychiatry Department, February 2003
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References
  1. McKinney-Whetstone, Diane; Cain, Joy Duckett (December 1996). "Our Beauty Our Strength". Essence. 27 (8): 71. Retrieved 17 May 2016 – via EBSCO.
  2. "Barbara J. Justice, MD, ABPN, ABFP". Elite American Physicians. 10 January 2014. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
  3. English, Merle (Feb 7, 1990). "BROOKLYN NEIGHBORHOODS". Newsday. p. 21. Retrieved 3 December 2012.
  4. Fiske, John; Hancock, Black Hawk (2016). Media Matters: Race & Gender in the U.S. Politics (2nd ed.). Routledge. ISBN 9781317498520.
  5. Jones, James H. (1993). Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (New and expanded ed.). New York: The Free Press. p. 235. ISBN 9780029166765.
  6. "Racism Charged as AIDS Drug is Challenged". Santa Cruz Sentinel. 2 September 1990. Retrieved 18 May 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. Wittes, Benjamin (29 October 2007). "Miracle Worker?". Washington City Paper. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  8. "The Angry Politics of Kemron". Newsweek. 3 January 1993. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  9. "AIDS Work at a Nation of Islam Clinic Is Questioned". The New York Times. 4 March 1994. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  10. "The History Of Kemron Clinical Trials". Washington Informer. 14 May 1997. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  11. Nattrass, Niccoli (2012). The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back. Columbia University Press. p. 59. ISBN 9780231520256.
  12. "Newsmakers". Aiken Standard. 1 March 1996. Retrieved 17 May 2016 – via Newspaper Archive.
  13. Carmichael, Stokely; Thewlwell, Ekwueme Michael (2003). Ready for Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture). New York: Scribner. p. 736. ISBN 9780684850030.
  14. Rice, John (26 May 1996). "Pan-African Crusader Still Ready for Revolution". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  15. "Wounded Rap Artist Avoids Jail, for Now". The New York Times. 15 December 1994. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
  16. "APA Minority Fellows Program Participants Announced". Psychiatric News. 20 September 2002. doi:10.1176/pn.37.18.0013b.
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