In my last post, I put up a reply by Dr. Stanley Goldfarb to a chunk I a post on “Race, ‘Wokeness,’ and Kidney Transplant Shortages,” which was partly a critique of Dr. Stanley Goldfarb’s article on the same subject, printed by the Metropolis Journal. On this put up, I supply a short rejoinder to Dr. Goldfarb.
In his response, Dr. Goldfarb write that he doesn’t assist “a race-based method for figuring out kidney perform,” which in flip would have an effect on prioritization for kidney transplants. Slightly, he says he merely rejects claims that the race-based method lately changed by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Community (OPTN) and the United Community for Organ Sharing (UNOS), was racist, as a result of it deprived African-People. He additionally object to the retroactive software of the brand new, race-neutral method to sufferers already on the transplant waitlist.
I recognize Dr. Goldfarb’s clarification of his views. Nonetheless, it appears to me that, in his original article, he did the truth is object to the displacement of the outdated race-conscious method. Certainly, he described it (together with one other coverage change) as “maybe essentially the most harmful victory for wokeness in well being care up to now.” Even in his reply, he continues to assist using the race-based system for sufferers already on the waitlist. On the very least, his place strikes me as removed from an unequivocal rejection of racial discrimination.
As famous in my previous post, using racial standards right here can maybe be defended on the bottom that this is likely one of the very uncommon circumstances the place there are genuinely important bodily variations between racial and ethnic teams that have an effect on their possibilities of a profitable transplant. However, as additionally famous there, such an argument a minimum of requires robust proof that there is no such thing as a different comparably correct method to assess sufferers. As well as, as mentioned in my earlier piece, racial discrimination is especially indefensible in a scenario the place we are able to simply remove kidney shortages for sufferers of all races, just by legalizing organ markets.
Whereas Dr. Goldfarb and I could proceed to vary on the problem of racial discrimination, there are some factors of settlement between us, as properly, additionally coated in my previous piece. For instance, we agree it might be a mistake to cut back the precedence given to kidney donors within the waitlist, as a way to promote racial “fairness.”