The Dangers of Ideology over Science in Medicine

Social ideologies about race and oppression have begun to permeate every aspect of American society. Regardless of one’s views on systemic racism, everyone should be concerned about a new and dangerous movement within medicine. While seeking to promote inclusion, it has, unfortunately, put wokeness and political correctness above science and facts. This is unacceptable when people’s health and lives are on the line.

The University of Illinois – Chicago made headlines after publishing a resource guide claiming that obesity is rooted in racism. Amanda Montgomery, a research assistant and author of the controversial resource, wrote that the idea of obesity as a bad thing is merely cultural. She claims that “Fatness and differing body characteristics were used to justify lack of civilization” and the idea was used “as a way to justify slavery, racism and classism, and control women through ‘temperance.’” 

Indeed, obesity is slightly more prevalent among African-American adults (49.9%) than Hispanic (45.6%) or white (41.4%) adults; however, when turning those into raw numbers, it shows a different picture. Obesity impacts 104.8 million white adults and 22.2 million black adults. Factors such as geographic food styles and income level affect food choices. The facts and statistics show that, contrary to the woke medical crowd, obesity cannot be pegged as a racial issue. It is a problem across the board.

Ignoring the decades of research showing that obesity is a preventable disease, Montgomery asserts that it is actually due to “uncontrollable genetic or environmental factors.” When it comes to the negative health outcomes that are equally well-documented, she claims it is a mere correlation, not causation. She claims that the real cause of diabetes and heart disease is “weight stigma,” not obesity. Her solution is for doctors across the nation to tell patients that there is nothing they can do about their weight and there is nothing they should do. It is wrong to encourage patients to exercise or eat more healthily in quantity and types of food because it leads to negative feelings and weight stigma.

It is obvious where this solution will lead: even more obesity and exponentially higher heart disease and diabetes levels. Why? Because obesity, not stigma, causes these health outcomes, and one’s lifestyle and everyday actions can lead to obesity. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution to obesity. No diet works for everyone. One workout routine might be the key for one person and impossible for another. However, even taking moderate measures of walking regularly and watching what you eat is exponentially better than doing nothing and telling people they are helpless against this preventable disease.

Obesity is not the only area where wokeness is superseding facts. Do No Harm, a group that seeks to disconnect politics and social ideology from medicine, has documented the rise of “anti-racism” in medicine that is leading to significant errors or other harmful outcomes for patients. Last month, they analyzed a journal article blaming “structural racism” for leukemia outcomes. Upon evaluating the article, they found that the minority patient sample was skewed. Those with more severe leukemia characteristics were overrepresented in the minority group. Do No Harm notes that, in the name of anti-racism, “the authors dismiss the leukemia characteristics as not important, yet they are well known to be important.” No wonder the minority group fared worse than their white counterparts with less severe cases.

Do No Harm president, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, stated that “there are individuals who actually believe that these kinds of racist approaches are going to benefit patients, but, in fact, they're wrong.” These unscientific papers will hurt people looking for quality medical care.

This problem is not limited to medical journals and research projects. Medical schools that are responsible for training our next generation of physicians are teaching anti-racism. The University of Buffalo has adopted a new curriculum for its medical school “with anti-racism at its core,” according to the school. Instead of focusing on providing world-class scientific training, Buffalo students will learn about “the history of anti-Blackness [and] discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and other marginalized communities.” When looking at “longstanding health issues in African American communities,” the curriculum will “directly acknowledge[e] the effects of systemic racism and the threat of police violence…”

The Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine “seeks to embed anti-racism and related topics throughout its curriculum,” including “social identity, intersectionality, microaggressions, power and privilege, [and] cognitive bias mitigation.” Last year, the Massachusetts Medical Society and some of the state’s top medical schools, including Harvard, adopted a commitment to anti-racist medicine and medical education. Time previously spent learning about medical practice and science is now spent on unscientific social theories.

There are legitimate medical issues related to race that need research and study. But the wokeness movement is doing a disservice to  legitimate research and science.. Instead of giving patients a solution or treatment to their health issues, our next generation of doctors are being trained to console them by blaming the system for their health. In the name of dismantling racism, this approach to medicine will lead to worse health outcomes, less treatment for preventable diseases, and less medical knowledge among our doctors.

Dr. Goldfarb states that the problem in American healthcare is “because of personal behaviors, understanding of the risks of illnesses, and access to the health care system” and that “it will only get worse if we put all our resources into the wrong solution to the medical problem.” We must stop putting wokeness over medical science, or else we will cause great harm.

Marilyn M. Singleton, MD, JD is a board-certified anesthesiologist. Dr. Singleton completed two years of Surgery residency at UCSF, then her Anesthesia residency at Harvard’s Beth Israel Hospital. She was an instructor, then Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland before returning to California for private practice.