“It’s Basically Scientific Racism”: Medical Experts Hate RFK Jr.’s Claim About Black People And Vaccines

Race-based medicine and scientific racism has led to undertreatment of Black patients, dismissal of pain and even death, Blackstock stressed.

Both experts pointed to real-life examples of this, like the false belief that Black people have better-functioning kidneys than white people. This made it harder for Black people to get the treatment they needed, like kidney transplants, according to Bervell. And this thought pattern isn’t from some faraway time ― a medical equation that reinforced this bias wasn’t changed until 2021, Bervell said.

What’s more, during the 1793 yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia, Black people were believed to be resistant to yellow fever, which was not true and led to high mortality rates among Black people, Blackstock explained.

“The importance of understanding the problem with the myths is that they can literally lead to regulations being written into medicine that treat populations differently just based on race,” Bervell said. “It can actually change the care that people receive.”

While it’s easy to look at a particular viewpoint as a one-off, medical racism has real-world consequences that irresponsible comments can make worse. Promoting debunked beliefs “distracts us from really doing the work that we need to do, which is dismantling systemic racism in health care and ensuring that everyone has equitable access to preventive care and treatments that they need,” Blackstock added.