Zone1 Thousands of Black kidney transplant patients get medical reparations

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

There are situations where people have been trying to obtain justice or some other thing that they need to be whole or live a full life. And more than once I've had this uneasy feeling that measures had been taken and certain obstructions had been put in place with the hope that the injured party would die before obtaining whatever it was that they needed. Well I'll be darned if that isn't exactly what was occurring in at least one case that I know of - Black patients waiting for a kidney, were made to wait longer due to racism. Some of them weren't able to hold out and did die before receiving a kidney. The details are below...

There's a special kind of patience someone waiting for a kidney transplant has. Most wait three years or more. Charlotte Smith waited five for hers.​

​

"Many people think that the first call that comes is actually the one where you get the kidney, and that's not necessarily the case. So I received actually three calls before I actually received the kidney from a live donor,"​

​

As of June 20, a total of 88,716 people are waiting for a kidney transplant in the United States. More than 27,000 of those patients are Black. Now, some Black kidney transplant candidates are getting credit for years of time they should have been on the waiting list, but were kept off because of race.​

​

"I went from being officially on the list as of January 27, 2023, and they backdated to December 14, 2017," Katherine Anderson of Norristown, Pennsylvania, told Scripps News. "Why? That — that's my question. Why did it have to be the way that it is?"​

​

Last year, federal health officials got rid of a decades-old formula that included a factor for race to calculate kidney function. It's called the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. Kidneys filter out waste through urine. The less healthy a person's kidney, the more waste that goes in the blood and the higher the eGFR. The average eGFR for a healthy 40-year-old is 99, or 99 milliliters per minute. When a patient's eGFR is 20 or less they're eligible for transplant.​

​

But the old race-based eGFR would falsely diagnose a Black patient's kidney function, wrongfully showing it was filtering better than it actually was. It's even more troubling because experts say high rates of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and heart disease increase the risk of kidney failure in the Black community.​

​

Continued here:​

MSN​

 

[The Duke]

Idk if it could be called "reparations", it's more like they just stopped with the covert racism.

 

[Mikeoxenormous]

There are situations where people have been trying to obtain justice or some other thing that they need to be whole or live a full life. And more than once I've had this uneasy feeling that measures had been taken and certain obstructions had been put in place with the hope that the injured party would die before obtaining whatever it was that they needed. Well I'll be darned if that isn't exactly what was occurring in at least one case that I know of - Black patients waiting for a kidney, were made to wait longer due to racism. Some of them weren't able to hold out and did die before receiving a kidney. The details are below...

There's a special kind of patience someone waiting for a kidney transplant has. Most wait three years or more. Charlotte Smith waited five for hers.​

​

"Many people think that the first call that comes is actually the one where you get the kidney, and that's not necessarily the case. So I received actually three calls before I actually received the kidney from a live donor,"​

​

As of June 20, a total of 88,716 people are waiting for a kidney transplant in the United States. More than 27,000 of those patients are Black. Now, some Black kidney transplant candidates are getting credit for years of time they should have been on the waiting list, but were kept off because of race.​

​

"I went from being officially on the list as of January 27, 2023, and they backdated to December 14, 2017," Katherine Anderson of Norristown, Pennsylvania, told Scripps News. "Why? That — that's my question. Why did it have to be the way that it is?"​

​

Last year, federal health officials got rid of a decades-old formula that included a factor for race to calculate kidney function. It's called the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. Kidneys filter out waste through urine. The less healthy a person's kidney, the more waste that goes in the blood and the higher the eGFR. The average eGFR for a healthy 40-year-old is 99, or 99 milliliters per minute. When a patient's eGFR is 20 or less they're eligible for transplant.​

​

But the old race-based eGFR would falsely diagnose a Black patient's kidney function, wrongfully showing it was filtering better than it actually was. It's even more troubling because experts say high rates of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and heart disease increase the risk of kidney failure in the Black community.​

​

Continued here:​

MSN​

I always thought that kidneys were red in color.

 

[1srelluc]

Blacks have higher transplant rejection rates due to lifestyle and natural causes.....Why waste a kidney or other hard to obtain organ on a ethnicity that has a high rejection rate?

Study Points to One Cause of Higher Rates of Transplanted Kidney Rejection in Blacks - 08/29/2008

A Johns Hopkins research team reports it may have an explanation for at least some of the higher organ rejection rates seen among black - as compared to white - kidney transplant recipients.

www.hopkinsmedicine.org

 

[JoeB131]

A few thoughts.

First, blacks are less likely to sign their organ donor cards. And like it or not, you are more likely to have a successful transplant if you have a close tissue match.

Second, we bury plenty of healthy organs, but we can only collect them under ideal circumstances. Why not allow people to get paid for their donated organs? (or more precisely, their families)

 

[Dekster]

There are situations where people have been trying to obtain justice or some other thing that they need to be whole or live a full life. And more than once I've had this uneasy feeling that measures had been taken and certain obstructions had been put in place with the hope that the injured party would die before obtaining whatever it was that they needed. Well I'll be darned if that isn't exactly what was occurring in at least one case that I know of - Black patients waiting for a kidney, were made to wait longer due to racism. Some of them weren't able to hold out and did die before receiving a kidney. The details are below...

There's a special kind of patience someone waiting for a kidney transplant has. Most wait three years or more. Charlotte Smith waited five for hers.​

​

"Many people think that the first call that comes is actually the one where you get the kidney, and that's not necessarily the case. So I received actually three calls before I actually received the kidney from a live donor,"​

​

As of June 20, a total of 88,716 people are waiting for a kidney transplant in the United States. More than 27,000 of those patients are Black. Now, some Black kidney transplant candidates are getting credit for years of time they should have been on the waiting list, but were kept off because of race.​

​

"I went from being officially on the list as of January 27, 2023, and they backdated to December 14, 2017," Katherine Anderson of Norristown, Pennsylvania, told Scripps News. "Why? That — that's my question. Why did it have to be the way that it is?"​

​

Last year, federal health officials got rid of a decades-old formula that included a factor for race to calculate kidney function. It's called the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. Kidneys filter out waste through urine. The less healthy a person's kidney, the more waste that goes in the blood and the higher the eGFR. The average eGFR for a healthy 40-year-old is 99, or 99 milliliters per minute. When a patient's eGFR is 20 or less they're eligible for transplant.​

​

But the old race-based eGFR would falsely diagnose a Black patient's kidney function, wrongfully showing it was filtering better than it actually was. It's even more troubling because experts say high rates of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and heart disease increase the risk of kidney failure in the Black community.​

​

Continued here:​

MSN​

Interesting but TBH I had no idea they would or could use race in anyway in terms of measuring kidney function. It seems like an odd vector to be considering. Anyway, if you are in my family and need a kidney, sure I will get tested and cough one up. If not, then not. It seems like a lot of people get theirs that way so I am not sure if that is also at play in the disparity. Have any information as to whether blacks are less likely to donate, whether they are less likely to be elgible to donate, or are less financially suited to be donors? I have been told it is a hell of a worse recovery for the donor than the donee because the donor's body has to adapt to the downgraded function of 1 kidney and the recipient immediately sees improvement from having no functional kidneys just by getting 1.

 

[JoeB131]

Also should be pointed out that Kidney transplants are a dead-end treatment.

They have to replaced every couple of years.

 

[1srelluc]

Also should be pointed out that Kidney transplants are a dead-end treatment.

They have to replaced every couple of years.

My uncle had a kidney transplant in '88 that his sister donated to him and it worked fine till early 2022 when he passed of covid complications.

Blacks have a issue with finding full blood relatives to donate to them....Half brothers and sisters are often not compatible given their rejection history.

That and their general aversion to surgery in general.....Can't hardly blame them there.

 

[MarathonMike]

Also should be pointed out that Kidney transplants are a dead-end treatment.

They have to replaced every couple of years.

No way! Transplanted kidneys last more like 20 years.

 

[MarathonMike]

It is a stretch at best to bring racism and reparations into this subject.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

Interesting but TBH I had no idea they would or could use race in anyway in terms of measuring kidney function. It seems like an odd vector to be considering. Anyway, if you are in my family and need a kidney, sure I will get tested and cough one up. If not, then not. It seems like a lot of people get theirs that way so I am not sure if that is also at play in the disparity. Have any information as to whether blacks are less likely to donate, whether they are less likely to be elgible to donate, or are less financially suited to be donors? I have been told it is a hell of a worse recovery for the donor than the donee because the donor's body has to adapt to the downgraded function of 1 kidney and the recipient immediately sees improvement from having no functional kidneys just by getting 1.

My best friend was an only child and her parents passed before her. If what the article is saying is true, it's possible that the formula they were using to measure how well her kidneys were functioning was tweaked to make it seem that she was doing better than she actually was. This article has me worried all over again.

 

[SweetSue92]

My best friend was an only child and her parents passed before her. If what the article is saying is true, it's possible that the formula they were using to measure how well her kidneys were functioning was tweaked to make it seem that she was doing better than she actually was. This article has me worried all over again.

It seems like there are multiple factors here. First: if that test was tampered with that's criminal. But second, it seems true that Blacks have more incidence of high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity, which makes kidney transplant more complicated.

Both can and should be addressed--the first case should be an investigation. I don't know much about the second--it seems multi-faceted.

 

[NewsVine_Mariyam]

It is a stretch at best to bring racism and reparations into this subject.

Last year, federal health officials got rid of a decades-old formula that included a factor for race to calculate kidney function. It's called the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. Kidneys filter out waste through urine. The less healthy a person's kidney, the more waste that goes in the blood and the higher the eGFR. The average eGFR for a healthy 40-year-old is 99, or 99 milliliters per minute. When a patient's eGFR is 20 or less they're eligible for transplant.
​

But the old race-based eGFR would falsely diagnose a Black patient's kidney function, wrongfully showing it was filtering better than it actually was.​

It has only recently come to light that when evaluating Black former football players for brain injuries, they use a different starting value presumably under the premise that a Black player can endure a lot more hits and injury before that accumulated damage will cause him to suffer as compared to a white player. They've just recently getting rid of this two tier evaluation system.

How many Black people have suffered because the people in charge of these determinations don't believe that Black feel pain or suffer injury in the same manner as whites?

 

[MisterBeale]

I was watching or reading? I forget which, a documentary on how the problems with the American medical system treating our black community is two fold.

Like the bias toward males in the system, there is also an implicit bias toward Americans of Europeans decent, who have traditional American diets and common activity levels.

And the study of In_group/Out-Group power dynamics of the medical establishment, creates an atmosphere where members in the black community are less willing to speak up, if they do not understand something in their medical care, or their health history, in regards to their diet and fitness. Thus, as a community, according to insurance and health stats, tend to use the system less. . .

It seems, to be. . . a perfect storm, even if we can get past the documented, "medical racism," caused by bias, ignorance and stereo type.

Understanding and Ameliorating Medical Mistrust Among Black Americans

www.commonwealthfund.org

" . . Studies have found Black Americans are consistently undertreated for pain relative to white patients; one revealed half of medical students and residents held one or more false beliefs about supposed biological differences between Black and white patients, like the former have higher pain tolerance than the latter. In addition to this kind of differential treatment, the health care system often gives short shrift to the physical and emotional tolls of exposure to police brutality; substandard housing and schools; polluted neighborhoods; or other parts of the daily experiences of some Black Americans. Our September 2018 issue of Transforming Care described how health systems are working to reduce health disparities by confronting racism head on. In this issue, we look at the problem of mistrust, which has risen to the fore during the pandemic amid concerns about its effects on Black Americans. As a group, they are much more likely than whites to get seriously ill and die from COVID-19 but less willing to take the coronavirus vaccine.. . . "

Black Women Try To Avert Medical Racism By Searching For Black Doctors​

www.npr.org/2021/05/27/1000780657/black-women-try-to-avert-medical-racism-by-searching-for-black-doctors

 

[Dekster]

My best friend was an only child and her parents passed before her. If what the article is saying is true, it's possible that the formula they were using to measure how well her kidneys were functioning was tweaked to make it seem that she was doing better than she actually was. This article has me worried all over again.

I spent a few minutes diving into this. Apparently part of the problem has been matching donors with recipients for black people so there has been an increased effort to get more blacks to be organ donors. That part is what it is--a compatibility issue. The other issue has to do with the models they used (and many places are still using) that assume that blacks as a group naturally have higher waste output rates than whites as a group and that is why is why they were individually weighted down in the algorithms. One of the articles I read suggested that race considerations were not always a bad thing. They cited a study that showed that removing race considerations had far worse outcomes for blacks when it came to cancer treatment, so I guess they still need to sort a lot of things out about when it is or isn't appropriate.

 

[Dekster]

No way! Transplanted kidneys last more like 20 years.

That is what a friend who got one from his dad was told--about 20 years and he would need a new donor.

 

[MizMolly]

There are situations where people have been trying to obtain justice or some other thing that they need to be whole or live a full life. And more than once I've had this uneasy feeling that measures had been taken and certain obstructions had been put in place with the hope that the injured party would die before obtaining whatever it was that they needed. Well I'll be darned if that isn't exactly what was occurring in at least one case that I know of - Black patients waiting for a kidney, were made to wait longer due to racism. Some of them weren't able to hold out and did die before receiving a kidney. The details are below...

There's a special kind of patience someone waiting for a kidney transplant has. Most wait three years or more. Charlotte Smith waited five for hers.​

​

"Many people think that the first call that comes is actually the one where you get the kidney, and that's not necessarily the case. So I received actually three calls before I actually received the kidney from a live donor,"​

​

As of June 20, a total of 88,716 people are waiting for a kidney transplant in the United States. More than 27,000 of those patients are Black. Now, some Black kidney transplant candidates are getting credit for years of time they should have been on the waiting list, but were kept off because of race.​

​

"I went from being officially on the list as of January 27, 2023, and they backdated to December 14, 2017," Katherine Anderson of Norristown, Pennsylvania, told Scripps News. "Why? That — that's my question. Why did it have to be the way that it is?"​

​

Last year, federal health officials got rid of a decades-old formula that included a factor for race to calculate kidney function. It's called the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. Kidneys filter out waste through urine. The less healthy a person's kidney, the more waste that goes in the blood and the higher the eGFR. The average eGFR for a healthy 40-year-old is 99, or 99 milliliters per minute. When a patient's eGFR is 20 or less they're eligible for transplant.​

​

But the old race-based eGFR would falsely diagnose a Black patient's kidney function, wrongfully showing it was filtering better than it actually was. It's even more troubling because experts say high rates of diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and heart disease increase the risk of kidney failure in the Black community.​

​

Continued here:​

MSN​

Healthcare should never include race. Whoever is first on the list or in more critical condition should be determining factors.

 

[MarathonMike]

​

Last year, federal health officials got rid of a decades-old formula that included a factor for race to calculate kidney function. It's called the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. Kidneys filter out waste through urine. The less healthy a person's kidney, the more waste that goes in the blood and the higher the eGFR. The average eGFR for a healthy 40-year-old is 99, or 99 milliliters per minute. When a patient's eGFR is 20 or less they're eligible for transplant.​

​

But the old race-based eGFR would falsely diagnose a Black patient's kidney function, wrongfully showing it was filtering better than it actually was.​

It has only recently come to light that when evaluating Black former football players for brain injuries, they use a different starting value presumably under the premise that a Black player can endure a lot more hits and injury before that accumulated damage will cause him to suffer as compared to a white player. They've just recently getting rid of this two tier evaluation system.

How many Black people have suffered because the people in charge of these determinations don't believe that Black feel pain or suffer injury in the same manner as whites?

My Dad died of kidney failure and they wouldn't even put him on the donor list. There are multiple factors involved in this subject that do not include systemic bias against Black people.

 

[JoeB131]

My Dad died of kidney failure and they wouldn't even put him on the donor list. There are multiple factors involved in this subject that do not include systemic bias against Black people.

Sorry to hear about your dad.

The reality is that there just aren't enough kidneys to go around, and if Mariyam was really concerned about the lack of donors for black people, then she should encourage more black folks to sign their donor cards. The reality is that you are more likely to get a donor organ if you are a close tissue match, and this is one of the few cases where race really does matter.

 

[MizMolly]

My Dad died of kidney failure and they wouldn't even put him on the donor list. There are multiple factors involved in this subject that do not include systemic bias against Black people.

It’s usually money that makes the decision