I guess in an attempt to humanize her focus on "reproductive freedom," Kamala Harris is branching out beyond just calling for no restrictions at all on abortion — she's also throwing into her word salad things about maternal mortality rates and taking that on.
Back in 2020, I did a post on a CNN report on a study showing that black newborns were three times more likely to die when looked after by white doctors. Shocking, huh?
Black newborn babies in the US are more likely to survive childbirth if they are cared for by Black doctors, but three times more likely to die when looked after by White doctors, a study finds. https://t.co/cwZ3BZmlL2
— CNN (@CNN) August 18, 2020
Rob Picheta reported that “the authors did not speculate about the reasons behind the trend, but wrote: ‘Taken with this work, it gives warrant for hospitals and other care organizations to invest in efforts to reduce such biases and explore their connection to institutional racism.'”
So they didn't know the reasons, but knew institutional racism had something to do with it. White doctors were just letting black babies die, apparently.
The account Free Black Thought has an update on that study:
Remember when the neo-segregationist left told you that white doctors were killing black babies?
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
Turns out they were either incapable of analyzing their own data or outright lying to you.
A new study demolishes the failings and falsehoods in that first study. We unpack it: 🧵 pic.twitter.com/DusXGDN311
2)
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
The original study claimed black newborns had lower mortality rates when cared for by black physicians. This got a lot of attention and influenced legal discourse, despite its, ahem, limitations. Classic 2020: it was as if they wanted you to think black people and white… pic.twitter.com/cF9wQh0Pmw
"… to think black people and white people couldn't live together."
3)
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
The study was so influential it was even cited (with clumsy inaccuracies) by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissent in the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard case, demonstrating how far-reaching its conclusions became. https://t.co/AxflCowDVi pic.twitter.com/kUpMW6cDbA
She's not a biologist.
4)
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
A new analysis of the "white doctors kill black babies" study points out a crucial omitted factor: very low birth weight (< 1500g) of the neonates in question. This led to a major misinterpretation/misrepresentation of what the data actually say. https://t.co/scrQCWfUJL pic.twitter.com/QcKJzGNTWd
5)
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
Very low birth weight, more common in black newborns (3.3%) than white (1.2%), accounts for 81% of black neonatal deaths and 66% of white. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) this critical factor wasn't accounted for in the original analysis.https://t.co/scrQCWfUJL pic.twitter.com/mnU8Dk8MWt
6)
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
When the new researchers, G. Borjas and @RAVerBruggen, included very low birth weight, the apparent benefit of racial concordance became statistically insignificant. This suggests birth weight, not physician race, may be the more influential factor in newborn survival rates. pic.twitter.com/42pj6keLIz
7)
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
The new study also found that white doctors were more likely to care for black newborns with very low birth weights: 3.4% of their black patients vs 1.4% for black doctors. This important distribution wasn't considered, for inexplicable reasons, in the original study. pic.twitter.com/2mIq7dKSyK
8 )
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
By omitting to mention this disparity, the initial research incorrectly attributed higher mortality rates to lack of "racial concordance" between baby and doctor, rather than to increased incidence of very low birth weight cases among the black patients of white doctors. pic.twitter.com/cssBrDTQ4Y
9)
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
Borjas and VerBruggen conclude that reducing very low birth weights among black newborns may be more crucial in narrowing the black-white infant mortality gap than focusing on physician-patient racial matching, a dramatically different prescription from the original study. pic.twitter.com/c5YxU9cdGJ
10)
— Free Black Thought (@FreeBlckThought) September 17, 2024
The new study underscores the importance of controlling for all relevant factors in medical studies (who woulda thought?), esp. when findings can influence policies and public perceptions of the very possibility of a multiracial society. Sloppy/misleading analyses can lead… pic.twitter.com/EBNDzAx12D
"… can lead to dangerous and racially inflammatory conclusions about healthcare disparities."
Here's a link to the new study.
So a flawed and "racially inflammatory" study gets picked up by CNN and then by a Supreme Court justice.
We've done so many stories on hospitals striving to achieve "racial equity" and in the process putting lives in danger.
Will CNN report on this new information?
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