Obstetricians are not Racist Baby Killers

In the aftermath of George Floyd, wokists desperately tried to find evidence of systematic racial discrimination. The most convincing example was a study showing Black babies die more often with White physicians.

Now it turns out that the study was fooled by a bogus correlation.

The Economist magazine reports:

“when Black newborns are cared for by Black physicians, the mortality penalty they suffer, as compared with White infants, is halved.”

This striking finding quickly captured national and international headlines, and generated nearly 700 Google Scholar citations. The study was widely interpreted—incorrectly, say the authors—as evidence that newborns should be matched to doctors of the same race, or that white doctors harboured racial animus against black babies. It even made it into the Supreme Court’s records as an argument in favour of affirmative action, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson (mis)citing the findings. A supporting brief by the Association of American Medical Colleges and 45 other organisations mentioned the study as evidence that “For high-risk black newborns, having a black physician is tantamount to a miracle drug.”

Now a new study seems to have debunked the finding, to much less fanfare.

Black babies do have lower birth weight, and the underweight babies survive less often, but it has nothing to do with the physician's race. The only relevance of the physican's race is that the most difficult cases are more likely to be referred to an expert specialist, who is more likely to be White.

Will the bogus paper and the 700 citations issue corrections? No. The US Supreme Court did not its incorrect citation. Wokesters will continue to claim this proves systemic discrimination.

I criticized Justice Jackson for saying:

"For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live."

I did not know the study was completely bogus, but I am suspicious of any study when (1) it draws causal conclusions from a correlation; (2) there is no control group; and (3) the policy recommendation matches the woke agenda.

Use common sense. Do you really think White physicians are killing Black babies? I resent these accuxations. It is outrageous that scientific, medical, legal, and political authorities go along with them.