Doctors Are Using An Outdated Formula To Misdiagnose Black Patients

doctor texting
Briona Lamback
May 2, 2022

A decades-old racist formula, supposedly developed to help reduce the likelihood of over-diagnosing kidney disease, is masking ACTUAL cases, harming our people! Why is it still being used?

Once a doctor has measured a patient’s kidney function, they use this formula to adjust scores – but only for Black people. This “race adjustment” can push someone with a possible case of chronic kidney disease to the healthy side of the spectrum! 

This practice has dangerous potential.

Black patients are often misdiagnosed with inaccurate kidney function scores, and sometimes prevented entirely from being added to kidney transplant lists. And even worse, federal judges are using this racist formula to deny some incarcerated people early release!

In recent years, medical professionals have argued that this race-based formula perpetuates the history of white supremacist ideologies in medicine – though schools still teach it. Many have called for the end of its use. 

The medical industry is rooted in racism, and these practices cannot continue harming our people.

Black lives are at risk because of practices like this. Medical racism doesn’t just affect one area of our lives. It permeates throughout, directly influencing other institutions that rely on these falsehoods like the criminal legal system. 

We must know how the medical industry functions to advocate for ourselves every single time.

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