How Activists Are Hardwiring ‘Race Marxism’ Into the Medical Field

The Biden administration proposed giving bonus payments to physicians who acknowledge systemic racism as the primary cause of health differences between racial groups and incorporate so-called “anti-racism” into their medical practices.

The move to pressure healthcare professionals to repeat the claim that racial health disparities are caused by racism and not lifestyle choices is part of a broader, years-long push to hardwire “race Marxism” into the medical field. The effort stretches from medical schools and research institutions to patient care and medical administration, with potentially devastating effects for patients and the healthcare system as a whole.

“Race Marxism,” analogous to “anti-racism” as popularized by Ibram X. Kendi, seeks to promote equal outcomes across racial groups, as opposed to a “colorblind” approach which favors equal opportunity and does not take race into account.

Dr. Erica Li, a pediatrician, told the Daily Caller News Foundation that “race Marxism” — a phrase for which she does not take credit — pits “classes” of people against each other on the basis of race, gender or sexuality rather than economic class, as classical Marxism did.

The ideology’s newfound popularity caused a frenzy in the medical community in 2020 as doctors, researchers, medical schools and other medical institutions sought to infuse “anti-racist” practices into their work.

PATIENT CARE

Doctors and medical institutions are questioning how they allocate limited resources in crisis situations in light of unequal health outcomes for different racial groups. Specifically, some medical professionals have advocated for prioritizing black and Latino patients on the basis of race when rationing limited, life-saving medical resources.

When deciding which groups would receive the first vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended prioritizing essential workers over the elderly — despite the elderly facing higher risk of death from COVID-19 — in order to be more racially equitable (the elderly tend to be more white while essential workers tend to be less white, demographically), according to the Los Angeles Times.

The CDC walked back the suggestions after public outcry, according to Dr. Sally Satel, but Vermont explicitly granted vaccine priority on the basis of race to non-white households before the general public became eligible. The vaccination rate for white residents (33%) had been outpacing that of non-white residents (20%); Republican Governor Phil Scott said this gap was unacceptable at the time.

Dr. Harald Schmidt of the University of Pennsylvania medical school advocated for updating guidance for rationing ventilators to account for race and other socioeconomic factors in April 2020. He suggested that hospitals use a zip code-based “Area Deprivation Index” to avoid the “legal complications” of explicitly race-based allocation of medical resources. Dr. Schmidt and the University of Pennsylvania medical school did not respond to DCNF’s requests for comment.

Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston considered a pilot program which would prioritize patients for cardiovascular care explicitly on the basis of race. Described by doctors Michelle Morse and Bram Wispelwey in a March article in Boston Review, the program would have given preferential admissions to black and Latino people for cardiological services to reduce heart health gaps between white and non-white patients.

Morse and Wispelwey argued that health gaps between different racial groups are driven by racism, and they viewed their plan as a form of racial reparations. The proposal drew from the 2010 proposal titled, “Critical Race Theory, Race Equity, and Public Health: Toward Antiracism Praxis.”

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RESEARCH

Three scientists argued that “researchers must name and interrogate structural racism and its sociopolitical consequences as a root cause of the racial health disparities we observe” in the prominent Journal of the American Medical Association in September 2020. Their insistence that researchers ignore the impact of personal choice and environmental factors is part of a broader effort within medicine to erase individual agency and blame all health disparities on systemic racism.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest funder of biomedical research in the world, has also turned its attention to racial issues. Its plan for ending structural racism in biomedical sciences includes pouring funding into research projects on structural racism and expanding diversity and inclusion programs for NIH administrators.

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The NIH gave $3.4 million to a Tulane researcher in October to develop an app that helps white parents teach “anti-racism,” as opposed to color-blindness, to their children. It also gave $600,000 to a University of Michigan professor to teach “anti-racism” to middle school students, Campus Reform reported.

ACADEMIA

A 2020 study on racial disparities in birthing mortality for newborns found that black newborns cared for by black doctors are half as likely to die compared to black babies treated by white physicians. The study failed to note that, in cases of a bad NICU outcome, the department chair or division chief is more likely to be listed as the doctor of record regardless of whether that doctor was ever involved in the care of the newborn. Department chairs and division chiefs are more likely to be white, according to Li.

“It’s garbage data in, garbage conclusion out … but what the public takes away is that white doctors are killing black babies. How is that going to create trust among our African American patients? I worry they will stop going to the hospital if they get sick,” Li said.

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Li told the DCNF she is concerned that practices based in “race Marxism” could negatively affect medical education and ultimately patient care by detracting from the limited time medical students have to learn critical scientific information.

Doctors are noticing a decline in newly-graduated medical interns, Li explained.

Li also worries that doctors may be asked in the future to pledge allegiance to “race Marxism” ideology in the maintenance of license process, meaning that doctors who do not comply would risk losing their medical licenses or board certifications. {snip}

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