It's more difficult for Black people to get kidney transplants because of "race adjustments."

[Ocelot II]

But there's no such thing as systemic racism, right?

Jordan Crowley was born with only one shrunken kidney to clean his blood. As he gets older, his one kidney gets sicker. Jordan is now 18, loves dogs, and is more interested in telling me about his college classes than the fact that he was recently hospitalized for seizures, a complication of his illness. He’ll need a kidney transplant soon. He would be closer to getting that kidney transplant, if only he were categorized as white.

A patient’s level of kidney disease is judged by an estimation of glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR, which normally sits between 90 and 120 in a patient with two healthy kidneys. In the United States, patients can’t be listed for a kidney transplant until they’re deemed sick enough—until their eGFR dips below a threshold of 20.

Jordan is biracial, with one Black grandparent and three white ones. His estimated GFR depends on how you interpret this fact: A white Jordan has a GFR of 17—low enough to secure him a spot on the organ waitlist. A Black Jordan has a GFR of 21.

Jordan’s doctors decided he is Black, meaning he doesn’t qualify. So now, he has to wait.

https://slate.com/technology/2021/06/kidney-transplant-dialysis-race-adjustment.html

[Sympthsical]

1. The original study is an abomination

It was barely science at all.

Now, an old assumption about Black bodies is preventing Black people from receiving timely diagnosis and access to treatment. When authors of the 1999 study added the race adjustment, they didn’t prove the idea that Black patients have higher levels of creatinine due to higher muscle mass. In fact, they never actually measured muscle mass. What’s more, they made this conclusion about fundamental racial difference without controlling for socioeconomic status, education, geography, or other diseases that affect kidney function, like diabetes and high blood pressure.

I mean, no one caught this? No journals managed this one, even though they were basing transplant eligibility on it?

I'm not surprised, but c'mon guys, you're supposed to be doing science over there.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Systemic racism is so ugly. K&R.

[Retrograde]

4. Did his doctors actually measure this rate

or just assign some APN ("air-picked number&quot ?

Even if there were some genuine physiological differences between different genotypes, give how mixed Americans - especially African-Americans - tend to be how can basing treatments on perceived race have any valid grounds? And since in this case the patient has at least 3/4 European ancestry shouldn't that be the dominant factor?