How ‘structural racism’ came to dominate medical research



President Trump's recent push to send federal health care dollars directly to individuals, rather than insurers, reflects a broader demand for transparency and effectiveness in how public funds are used. Government-funded medical research, which forms the foundation of much clinical care, also requires such scrutiny.

In recent years, academic medicine has advanced a nebulous theory of “structural racism” that echoes the 19th century “miasma” theory, which blamed disease on “bad air.” Despite scant evidence, studies attempting to validate this vague framework have multiplied, often funded by largely unaware taxpayers. Refocusing federal research dollars on rigorous science and evidence-based care is essential to correcting this trajectory.

The incentives were clear: Few researchers — early-career or established — would decline funding in an area where the NIH was investing heavily.

How did this happen? The construct of “structural racism” was virtually absent from medical literature until a decade ago. Since then, it has become the default explanation in academic medicine for differences in health outcomes across racial and ethnic groups. Its rise accelerated during the 2020 anti-racism craze, which swept through corporate boardrooms and university administrations while also becoming a core ideological pillar of Black Lives Matter and other political movements.

Academic medicine was no exception. This philosophy quickly gained favor in medical education, academic health centers, elite journals, and professional associations, eventually influencing federal agencies that distribute research funding.

The result: a surge of grant-funded studies built on the premise that racism causes health disparities. Of the nearly 2,300 articles indexed under the term “structural racism” in PubMed, the U.S. National Library of Medicine’s database of leading biomedical and health journals, 95% were published after Jan. 1, 2020. In 2025 alone, PubMed lists 400 such papers — nearly four times the total published before 2020.

This proliferation has been supported by a tsunami of federal taxpayer dollars coming from the National Institutes of Health. From 2020 to 2025, an NIH database search found nearly 750 projects mentioning “structural racism” in their abstracts, totaling almost $533 million in funding. More than 70 of those projects were funded in 2025 at just under $40 million — significantly down from more than 220 projects in 2024 totaling $150 million, but still far above 2020, when only 12 projects received a little over $12 million in the aggregate. Before 2020, the NIH had funded just 10 such projects at a combined cost of $4 million.

Funding patterns across NIH’s 27 Institutes and Centers from 2020 to 2025 make clear that ideology, not medical science, drove much of this growth. The largest investments came from the National Institute on Drug Abuse ($147 million in total funding), National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities ($70 million), and National Institute on Aging ($57 million), each pouring substantial resources into “structural racism” research.

In 2025, for example, NIDA supported a project under the Healthy Brain and Child Development National Consortium that identified “structural racism” as a risk to babies before and after birth, alongside more recognizable factors like maternal health, toxic exposures, and child abuse — thereby conflating an abstract, ill-defined, and ideological social theory with measurable, scientific variables as a threat to child development.

Also in 2025, NIMHD funded the Clinical Research Scholars Training program, a “health-equity focused” initiative created in part due to NIH calls for research on “the impact of structural racism and discrimination on health disparities.” Eligibility for this program was limited to those deemed “underrepresented in biomedical research.” All others need not apply.

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Douglas Rissing / Getty Images

And just last year, a NIA-funded project invoked “interrelated systems of structural racism” and “race-specific stress” as risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline, diverting attention and resources away from well-established contributors such as genetics, medical conditions, lifestyle and environmental factors, and core biological mechanisms like amyloid plaques and tau tangles.

Unfortunately, a commitment to science gave way to ideology years ago. Under Francis Collins, the NIH “acknowledged and committed to ending structural racism,” without even defining the concept itself. “Structural racism” was accepted despite its questionable validity and lack of explanatory power.

With vague boundaries and mechanisms difficult to measure, claims of “structural racism” far exceeded the empirical evidence. Nevertheless, the idea was accepted wholesale and used to justify a wave of DEI initiatives, effectively recasting the NIH as an “anti-racist” institution in the Ibram X. Kendi mold. Objective science was no longer sufficient; the agency was expected to take an activist stance.

Proponents embraced this shift, seeing an opportunity to move health research from “individual-level risk, health behavior, and functioning” to “structural level concepts” with “structural racism” named specifically. Research dollars supported tools like the Structural Racism Effect Index to “guide policies and investments to advance health equity.”

The incentives were clear: Few researchers — early-career or established — would decline funding in an area where the NIH was investing heavily, especially when that support could provide a path to publication in top journals.

Yet the instruments used to quantify “structural racism” expose a basic flaw: They don’t measure racism.

The SREI’s nine dimensions, for example, largely track socioeconomic conditions — wealth, income, housing, employment. In practice, a high score identifies communities facing poverty. Even researchers linking SREI scores to hypertension, obesity, smoking, and low physical activity concede they “cannot make causal inferences.”

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Deagreez via iStock/Getty Images

These health risks may result from poverty, contribute to it, or arise from entirely different causes. Labeling them as products of “structural racism” adds no explanatory value, miscasts economic hardship as race-based, and downplays individual responsibility. It overshadows far more consequential drivers of outcome disparities, including access to care, personal choice, medical comorbidities, and genetics.

Nonetheless, no alternative explanation for health disparities has received anywhere near the same attention in leading medical journals — such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, and JAMA — as “structural racism.” This concept has been treated as settled fact, with disparities alone offered as proof: If disparities exist, racism must be the cause. Likewise, many medical organizations have reinforced this view through policies and position papers that embed an anti-racism framework into scientific inquiry.

But change is in the air. The NIH’s recent miasma-like fixation on “structural racism” is finally clearing. Under Director Jay Bhattacharya, the agency is refocusing on its core mission of funding rigorous, evidence-based science rather than ideology-driven research. This shift will direct scarce taxpayer dollars toward work grounded in medical science and its practical application — research that can genuinely improve health rather than feed political currents.

This course correction is timely, and while sustained effort in 2026 will be needed to fully restore the NIH to its rightful mission, taxpayers can take comfort: America’s leading biomedical and medical science research institute will once again prioritize their dollars and their health.

Editor's note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

Concerns about 'structural racism' prompt major Mass. hospital network to change policies about babies born addicted to drugs



A major hospital network in Massachusetts has now revamped its policies regarding babies born addicted to drugs in an attempt to address "significant racial and ethnic inequities" it claims are associated with substance abuse disorder.

On Tuesday, Mass General Brigham, the commonwealth's largest hospital group, announced that it will no longer automatically report that an infant has been born with drug addiction since the automatic reporting and other such policies "disproportionately affect Black individuals."

Current commonwealth law demands mandatory reporting of all infants with "physical dependence upon an addictive drug at birth." However, the hospitals affiliated with Mass General Brigham — including Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, and Salem Hospital — will now encourage reporting such cases to child protective services only if the babies are "suffering or at imminent risk of suffering physical or emotional injury."

Another policy change at Mass General Brigham means that medical professionals will now conduct toxicology tests on newborns and/or "pregnant people" — sometimes referred to as women — only under two conditions. First, hospital workers must be given written consent to perform the tests. Second, they will perform the tests only if the results will affect the medical treatment the mother and/or child receives.

These new policies are part of Mass General Brigham's larger "United Against Racism effort" to fix policies that "may unwittingly perpetuate structural racism."

"Our new perinatal testing and reporting policy is the latest step in our efforts to address longstanding inequities in substance use disorder care and to provide compassionate, evidence-based support to families, while addressing substance use disorder as a treatable health condition," said Sarah Wakeman, M.D., senior medical director for Substance Use Disorder at Mass General Brigham.

Wakeman claimed that some women may stop seeking treatment for addiction if they believe they may lose custody of their children after birth. She also claimed that substance abuse alone does not mean that pregnant women will abuse or neglect their children after they're born.

Mass General Brigham is not the only medical organization that wants fewer babies born addicted to drugs to be taken away from drug-addicted mothers. It is following in the footsteps of Boston Medical Center as well as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society of Addiction Medicine, which have all taken a similar approach regarding drug-addicted babies.

"This policy reflects an emerging consensus, based on sound science, that is being embraced by our peer institutions and was developed in coordination with a wide range of partners," Wakeman asserted.

Allison Bryant, M.D., MPH, associate chief health equity officer at Mass General Brigham, claimed that this new policy will help those in the medical industry "turn our lens inward to understand our own contributions to stigma and inequity and strive to fix them."

Wakeman agreed. "It takes a multi-pronged approach to eliminate racial inequities and drop barriers to treatment," she said.

H/T: Libs of TikTok

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Next Time You’re Sparring With A Leftist, Try Asking A Question

Conservatives cornered in spaces of conformist ideology would do well to master the powerful rhetorical weapon of Socrates.

American Academy of Pediatrics recommends obese children take weight loss drugs and get surgery, blames increased childhood obesity on 'structural racism'



For the first time ever, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending that obese children take weight loss drugs and receive surgery.

On Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its latest guideline for treating childhood obesity — the first new guidance on the topic in 15 years. The AAP introduced a focus on pharmaceutical treatments as well as metabolic or bariatric surgery instead of prevention.

"These recommendations include motivational interviewing, intensive health behavior and lifestyle treatment, pharmacotherapy, and metabolic and bariatric surgery," the AAP recommendation stated. "The approach considers the child’s health status, family system, community context, and resources."

The guideline advises pediatricians to offer weight loss pills for obese children aged 12 and up.

NBC News reported, "Four drugs are now approved for obesity treatment in adolescents starting at age 12 — Orlistat, Saxenda, Qsymia and Wegovy — and one, phentermine, for teens age 16 and older. Another drug, called setmelanotide (brand name Imcivree), has been approved for kids age 6 and older who have Barde-Biedl syndrome, a genetic disease that causes obesity."

The guidance recommends that children aged 13 and up with severe obesity should consider metabolic and bariatric surgery.

For children with obesity age six and up, the AAP recommends the first approach should be face-to-face counseling over the course of about a year.

The American Academy of Pediatrics asserted that obesity "has been stigmatized for years and is associated with serious short and long-term health concerns when left untreated, including cardiovascular diseases and diabetes."

The AAP claimed, "The disease is obesity, and it can be treated successfully with the recognition that complex genetic, physiologic, socioeconomic, and environmental factors are at play."

The American Academy of Pediatrics stated, "The role of structural racism has played in obesity prevalence."

"Inequalities in poverty, unemployment, and homeownership attributable to structural racism have been linked to increased obesity rates," the AAP argued.

The guideline added, "Families may be struggling with poverty, access to healthy foods, lack of social supports, racism, and/or immigration status."

"Racism experienced in everyday life has also been associated with increased obesity prevalence," the guideline alleged. "Youth with overweight and obesity have been found to be at increased risk not only for weight-based harassment but also for sexual harassment and harassment based on race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and gender."

The word "exercise" is written 12 times in the American Academy of Pediatrics guidance, while the word "racism" appears 11 times.

Sandra Hassink, an author of the guideline and vice chair of the AAP's Clinical Practice Guideline Subcommittee on Obesity, claimed, "We now have evidence that obesity therapy is effective."

"There is no evidence that ‘watchful waiting’ or delayed treatment is appropriate for children with obesity," Hassink said in a statement. "The goal is to help patients make changes in lifestyle, behaviors, or environment in a way that is sustainable and involves families in decision-making at every step of the way."

"I think they are important because there are a number of misunderstandings about exactly what causes obesity and there are some unintended biases, even by medical providers with regard to childhood obesity," noted Dr. Marc Michalsky of Nationwide Children's Hospital — a co-author of the guideline.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that obesity impacts approximately 14.7 million American children and adolescents. More than 20% of American children aged six to 11 are obese, in addition to 22% of children between ages 12 to 19 being overweight.

What to know about the latest guidelines for childhood obesity www.youtube.com

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CNN argues Daylight Savings Time disproportionately affects people of color because of structural racism and inequality of America's 'social systems'



CNN published a recent article arguing that Daylight Savings Time disproportionately affects people of color because of structural racism.

CNN health reporter Jacqueline Howard penned an article titled: "Daylight Saving Time sheds light on lack of sleep’s disproportionate impact in communities of color."

The article begins, "As the United States rolled back the clocks one hour this month to observe the end of Daylight Saving Time, many people got a bit more sleep than usual – but some not as much as others."

"Growing evidence shows that lack of sleep and sleep disorders, such as obstructive sleep apnea, remain more prevalent in black, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino communities, and these inequities can have long-term detrimental implications for physical health, even raising the risk of certain chronic diseases," Howard contends.

Howard writes that "some sleep researchers worry about the potential effects that continuing to change standard time twice each year may have on sleep health inequities."

Howard included a quote from Chandra Jackson – a researcher and epidemiologist with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

“Poor sleep is associated with a host of poor health outcomes, including obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain cancers, including of the breast and colon," said Jackson – who has been studying racial and ethnic disparities in sleep. "Many of these health outcomes are more prevalent in the black population."

Howard alleges that "people of color appear to disproportionately experience" inequities in sleep health compared to white people. Without citing a source, Howard declares that people of color suffer sleep inequalities because it's "believed to be largely due to social systems in the United States."

The article claims that "many social and environmental determinants of health," such as living conditions and work schedules that are not conducive to a quality night's sleep, can be caused by "historical and persistent forms of structural racism."

Jackson believes that the inequality of health stems from the “totality of ways in which societies foster racial discrimination through mutually reinforcing systems of housing, education, employment, wages, benefits, credit, media, health care, and criminal justice.”

Jackson then references the 2020 shooting deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd's grandniece because they were shot when they were asleep. Jackson alleges that American's "systems of structural racism" can "cultivate conditions that make such incidents more likely to happen in black communities."

Jackson admits, "More research on the causes of disparities in sleep is needed." She adds, "Essentially anything that produces physical and psychological stress is a threat to sleep health, and these stressors tend to be more prevalent in black communities."

Jackson alleges, "It is believed that discriminatory policies and practices across sectors of society create the physical and social conditions that make it more difficult for Black families to get optimal sleep and grow up healthy."

Condoleezza Rice Takes On Claims Of ‘Structural Racism’

'With all of its problems, having been all over the world and having seen how people deal with difference, I will tell you that America deals with difference better than any country I've ever visited.'

Planned Parenthood CEO wakes up to Margaret Sanger's racist, evil beliefs



The president and CEO of Planned Parenthood says it's time for her company — the nation's largest abortion provider — to "reckon" with the racist legacy of its founder, eugenicist Margaret Sanger.

"Up until now, Planned Parenthood has failed to own the impact of our founder's actions," Planned Parenthood CEO Alexis McGill Johnson wrote in an op-ed for the Saturday edition of the New York Times. "We have defended Sanger as a protector of bodily autonomy and self-determination, while excusing her association with white supremacist groups and eugenics as an unfortunate 'product of her time.'"

Pro-life activists have for years criticized the racist origins of Planned Parenthood. The organization's founder, Sanger, supported eugenics and was an outspoken advocate for ridding the United States of poor non-whites through birth control and abortion. In her writings, Sanger referred to blacks, immigrants, and indigenous Americans as "human weeds," "reckless breeders," "spawning ... human beings who should never been born."

Planned Parenthood had for decades defended Sanger as a champion of women's rights and reproductive health, until last year when 350 current and former staffers of Planned Parenthood's Greater New York affiliate published an open letter condemning Sanger as "a racist, white woman" and accusing the organization of "institutional racism."

After public criticism, last July Planned Parenthood of Greater New York removed Sanger's name from its Manhattan clinic for her "harmful connections to the eugenics movement."

Now, McGill Johnson is the first Planned Parenthood CEO to publicly acknowledge Sanger's evil beliefs. She wrote:

Sanger spoke to the women's auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan at a rally in New Jersey to generate support for birth control. And event hough she eventually distanced herself from the eugenics movement because of its hard turn to explicit racism, she endorsed theSupreme Court's 1927 decision in Buck v. Bell, which allowed states to sterilize people deemed "unfit" without their consent and sometimes without their knowledge — a ruling that led to the sterilization of tens of thousands of people in the 20th century.

The first human trials of the birth control pill — a project that was Sanger's passion later in her life — were conducted with her backing in Puerto Rico, where as many as 1,500 women were not told that the drug was experimental or that they might experience dangerous side effects.

We don't know what was in Sanger's heart, and we don't need to in order to condemn her harmful choices. What we have is a history of focusing on white womanhood relentlessly. Whether our founder was a racist is not a simple yes or no question. Our reckoning is understanding her full legacy, and its impact. Our reckoning is the work that comes next.

As part of that "reckoning," McGill Johnson also acknowledged that Planned Parenthood is "privileging whiteness" and that it has "excluded trans and nonbinary people" by narrowly focusing on "women's health."

"As we face relentless attacks on our ability to keep providing sexual and reproductive health care, including abortion, we've claimed the mantle of women's rights, to the exclusion of other causes that women of color and trans people cannot afford to ignore," she wrote.

On behalf of Planned Parenthood, McGill Johnson went on to condemn the "many types of dehuminzation we are seeing right now" including "the dehumanization of Black and Latino victims of police violence such as Adam Toledo, Daunte Wright, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and too many others. The dehumanization of transgender people whose health care and rights are being denied in states across the country, and who face attacks not just from the right but also from trans-exclusionary radical 'feminists.'"

She did not spare a word for the dehumanization of an estimated 12 million unborn babies who were killed in abortion procedures globally this year.

Editor of prestigious medical journal fired for denying that structural racism exists in medicine



A deputy editor of one of America's most prestigious medical journals was fired over statements he made expressing skepticism about structural racism in medicine on a podcast that has since been deleted.

Activists called for a boycott against the Journal of the American Medical Association after Deputy Editor for Clinical Reviews and Education Edward H. Livingston, MD said that no physician was racist.

"Structural racism is an unfortunate term," said Livingston on the podcast. "Personally, I think taking racism out of the conversation will help. Many of us are offended by the concept that we are racist."

Editor-in-chief Howard Bauchner, MD, later apologized for the podcast and said that he had asked for and received Livingston's resignation. Bauchner said the comments made on the podcast did not reflect the values of the American Medical Association.

"I take responsibility for these lapses and sincerely apologize for both the lapses and the harm caused by both the tweet and some aspects of the podcast," said Bauchner.

James Ladara, MD, the CEO and EVP of the American Medical Association, released a statement on Wednesday announcing more fallout from the podcast.

We have heard from many in our physician community and beyond this past week who expressed anger, hurt, frustration and concern about a harmful podcast that was posted on the JAMA Network™ and the AMA Ed Hub™, along with the tweet that promoted it. They both minimized the effects of systemic racism in health care and questioned its profound impact on millions of people across our country.

Ladara made clear that the AMA endorsed the idea that structural racism exists in the U.S. and in medicine.

As physicians, and as leaders in medicine, we have a responsibility to not only acknowledge and understand the impact of structural racism on the lives of our patients, but to speak out against racial injustices wherever they exist in health care and society.

The AMA's Journal Oversight Committee (JOC) has launched an investigation into how the podcast and associated tweet were developed, reviewed, and ultimately posted. This investigation and report will be conducted via our general counsel's office and an independent outside counsel to ensure the integrity and objectivity of its findings. The JOC was established in 1999 as an independent governance body to ensure JAMA's editorial independence from AMA, its fiscal accountability, and the journalistic responsibility for JAMA and JAMA Network publications.

"Dr. Bauchner reports to the JOC," Ladara added ominously.

Much of the uproar centered around the now-deleted tweet that quoted from the podcast.

Here is the tweet that set it all off with a link to the 16 min podcast: https://t.co/WI053XCuH1 pic.twitter.com/n7T7yxa8G1
— Amanda (@AmandaLuvsRoses) March 8, 2021

"No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care? An explanation of the idea by doctors for doctors in this user-friendly podcast," read the tweet.

Here's an interview of Dr. Fauci with Bauchner:

Coronavirus Q&A with Anthony Fauci, MD – April 8, 2020www.youtube.com

AOC slams NYPD's expenditure of $75,000 on a robotic dog as wasteful and possibly racist
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AOC slams NYPD's expenditure of $75,000 on a robotic dog as wasteful and possibly racist



Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) slammed the New York Police Department for deploying its new robotic dog in the Bronx, suggesting that the $75,000 new crime-fighting tech is wasteful and its existence racist.

The democratic socialist "Squad" leader criticized the NYPD's "Digidog" after it was deployed to respond to a home invasion last week, saying that the resources spent to build the robot should have been allocated to serve other community needs.

"Shout out to everyone who fought against community advocates who demanded these resources go to investments like school counseling instead," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "Now robotic surveillance ground drones are being deployed for testing on low-income communities of color with under-resourced schools."

Please ask yourself: when was the last time you saw next-generation, world class technology for education, healthca… https://t.co/A5I3nzcURD
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)1614281834.0

According to the New York Post, the NYPD's "Digidog" is still in its test phase. The 70-pound robot is equipped with lights and cameras that allow the police to view "its surroundings in real-time." The robot also is equipped with two-way communication, can run up to 3.5 miles per hour, can see in the dark, and can climb stairs.

"Digidog" uses artificial intelligence to navigate and was designed to allow police to respond in emergency situations that are too dangerous for human officers.

"This dog is going to save lives, protect people, and protect officers and that's our goal," NYPD Technical Assistance Response Unit Inspector Frank Digiacomo said.

The Daily Mail reported that "Digidog" was deployed to a home invasion and barricade situation on East 227th Street near White Plains Road in Wakefield on Tuedsay.

Two men were reportedly being held hostage in a Bronx apartment. They had been threatened at gun point, tied up and tortured for hours by two male assailants who pretended to be plumbers to gain access to the home.

One of the victims managed to escape and called the police.

Digidog was deployed and helped officers determine that the armed suspects were no longer inside the home.

The police said they were still searching for the two men, who stole a cellphone and $2,000 in cash and used a hot iron to burn one of the victims.

Though the police are confident that the new technology can help save officer's lives in dangerous situations, Ocasio-Cortez believes money spent on crime fighting would be better reallocated for education or health care in "underserved communities."

"Please ask yourself: when was the last time you saw next-generation, world class technology for education, healthcare, housing, etc consistently prioritized for underserved communities like this?" she asked in a follow-up tweet.

More on NYPD's Digidog from WNYW:

The Left: The United States Is A Racist Hellhole Where Many More Black And Brown People Should Live

If it's hell to be black in America, why do tens of millions of Africans want to get into America? Do they not know that the United States is a racist country?