A biased test kept Black people from getting a kidney transplant

There seems to be something missing here:<p>&gt; Race isn’t a biological factor like age, sex or weight — it’s a social construct.<p>&gt; In 1999, an equation used to calculate eGFR was modified to adjust Black people’s results compared to everyone else’s, based on some studies with small numbers of Black patients and a long-ago false theory about differences in creatinine levels.<p>&gt; Black Americans are over three times more likely than white people to experience kidney failure.<p>so, is some racial metric reasonable or not? why are black Americans more likely to experience kidney failure - social issue, or biological?<p>was the study with a small number of participants repeated with a larger number?!

&gt; Race isn’t a biological factor like age, sex or weight — it’s a social construct.<p>Interesting conjecture there AP, but I don&#x27;t buy it. Surely race is a biological factor. Maybe not for kidney health specifically but wouldn&#x27;t race be inextricably tied to a person&#x27;s biology, heritage, medical history?<p>Race is determined at birth by parents&#x27; biology, therefore is biological. Not _everything_ that makes people different from one another is a purely social construct.<p>Don&#x27;t black people get sickle cell at higher rates than other races? Race is important in a lot of medical contexts.<p>Great that they fixed the kidney thing but don&#x27;t throw the baby out with the bathwater, or the next headline will be &quot;excess deaths due to incorrect treatment of &lt;condition&gt; for &lt;race&gt;&quot;.<p>By all means if the race-based heuristics are unsound, throw them out, but the article makes mention of a bunch more that are under scrutiny. Are they really all inaccurate or are we discounting biology in favor of social justice?

&gt; Race isn’t a biological factor like age, sex or weight — it’s a social construct. So how did it make its way into calculations of kidney function?<p>How would cystic fibrosis pick its targets based on a social construct? Look up its very imbalanced prevalence.<p>So, if the prevalence of cystic fibrosis <i>is</i> indeed race-based, then we can&#x27;t just assume that kidney function isn&#x27;t.