At issue is a once widely used test that overestimated how well Black people’s kidneys were functioning, making them look healthier than they really were — all because of an automated formula that calculated results for Black and non-Black patients differently. That race-based equation could delay diagnosis of organ failure and evaluation for a transplant, exacerbating other disparities that already make Black patients more at risk of needing a new kidney but less likely to get one.
A few years ago, the National Kidney Foundation and American Society of Nephrology prodded laboratories to switch to race-free equations in calculating kidney function. Then the U.S. organ transplant network ordered hospitals to use only race-neutral test results in adding new patients to the kidney waiting list.
Dr. Martha Pavlakis (of Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and former chair of the network’s kidney committee) calls what happened next an attempt at restorative justice: The transplant network gave hospitals a year to uncover which Black kidney candidates could have qualified for a new kidney sooner if not for the race-based test — and adjust their waiting time to make up for it. That lookback continues for each newly listed Black patient to see if they, too, should have been referred sooner.
How the fuck does a “race” based test get approved in an environment where scientific principles are relevant?
Because eugenics never died, it just got quieter.
Because this test has been around for literal decades. People don’t like finding out what they learned as fact is wrong and admin doesn’t want to spend the money changing. Racism and sexism are alive and well in hospitals. Clinically a new clinical test has to be found, go through a rigorous validation before it will be accepted (even new machines may take months to year+ to be validated). Then the test has to be scaled to where the pricing isn’t that different or better than the original.The fight to change this has taken a lot more effort and been going on longer than the article thinks.
Because there are a slew of biological factors (such as predisposition to sickle cell anemia) that are more prevalent in black people than white people.
Don’t factor race into medical evaluation, that’s racist and you are killing black people. Factor race into medical evaluation, that’s racist and you are killing black people.
It’s a no win.
It’s not a game, it’s peoples’ lives. Treat patients as they are, factor in race when it’s relevant, and no reasonable person will think that you’re racist.
It’s only racist when one factors in race when it’s not relevant, thus harming patients.
It’s called practicing medicine for a reason, and perhaps advancement isn’t being made faster because no matter what the doctor practicing the medicine does, they are called a racist who is intentionally trying to kill them, so the doctors steer clear of the topics, and outdated measurements stay in use for decades.
Honestly, it reeks of excuses for malpractice lawsuits.
Things like, say, an increased need for vitamin D supplements in colder climates, because you need sunlight to manufacture vitamin D to make serotonin and the increased melanin blocks what little sun is available way up north? Sure. That one is a difference off the top of my head that people really just don’t think about.
Kidney function is provably not one of them and never was, so you’re gonna have to fuck off with that. I usually make a conscious, concerted effort to be a better person than I was on reddit, but you already admitted in another comment that you don’t know shit about medicine and you seem bothered in the opposite direction regardless.
So with the possibility of this topic being your emotional support knowledge base out of the picture, the only horse you logically seem to have in this is that seeing ethnic minorities demand that we stop allowing them to die by reason of nothing annoys you to have to listen to.
If that’s not the case, I might be a bit quieter and rephrase everything you said forever, because it does not look like you want it to look. If it IS the case, get the fuck off my platform.
Sickle cell anemia would like a word. Some diseases are absolutely more prevalent in certain races. The problem is we as a society fail to distinguish between “being racist” and “acknowledging differences”. You point out differences and suddenly you’re racist, even if it is relevant. In this case, it seems not to be relevant and is good it is being removed. But let’s not pretend there aren’t factual reasons for it to exist in some crcumstances.
Another example is pulse oxygen monitors being worse on melonated skin. It’s a result of the physical properties of the skin. Is it racist to acknowledge this and have different method for people with different skin types? Absolutely not.
Not everything is an identity issue. And it’s not “your platform” you egotistical prick. Fuck off yourself.
Continue to try to be a better person than you were on reddit.
I admitted I’m not a doctor and commented on the rhetoric. You came in acting like master of all racial doctoring, and with the same confrontational virtue signaling aggression I pointed out.
I highly doubt that any doctor is trying to kill black patients because they are racist.
Instead of “we detected a bad test and are trying to fix it, yay!” It’s “yall racist fucks be killing us because you’re racist. Why did you bring race into my Healthcare anyway?”
Answer to that question “because you just said ‘you racist fucks won’t consider my race and you treat us like white people, and that is killing us’.”
It’s never a productive conversation.
It’s always “yall racist. I’m a victim of your racism. I’m a victim of you. Stand up, no, sit down, why yall standing? Look at you standing, so racist. If you werent racist youd sit down. Look at the racist just sittin’ there. Stop victimizing me. Get on your belly. Why your racist ass on your belly? Oppressing me with your lying on your belly ass.”
Different races have different medical needs
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1876201812000044
For a more at home example; you can look at lactose and alcohol tolerance differences between populations