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Readers Respond to Do No Harm’s Launch

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb’s recent Wall Street Journal op-ed led to an outpouring of support for our mission. Many readers responded to the piece, entitled “Keep Politics Out Of The Doctor’s Office,” by pointing out important facts about the woke takeover of healthcare.

Devorah Goldman, a visiting fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told the Wall Street Journal that people should also be aware of what’s happening to medical testing. She drew special attention to the Association of American Medical Colleges’ (AAMC) “sweeping changes to the Medical College Admissions Test” (MCAT):

“The revised MCAT includes a new section that screens for adherence to progressive orthodoxies; for example, a practice question… asks whether the ‘lack of minorities such as African Americans or Latinos/Latinas among university faculty members’ is due to symbolic racism, institutional racism, hidden racism or personal bias. The answer is supposed to be institutional racism.”

She continued:

“The AAMC also recently introduced a new exam meant to complement the MCAT by testing softer skills such as ‘cultural competence.’ An AAMC staff writer explains that it was designed with the goal of eliminating ‘group differences in mean scores for African American and Hispanic test-takers compared to White and Asian examinees.’ Dr. Goldfarb notes that ‘medical schools and residencies are lowering admissions standards.’ This is by design.”

Another reader, Dr. Jonathan Stolz, praised Stan’s courage in speaking out:

“Dr. Goldfarb writes what many physicians think but we’re afraid to say, for fear of being labeled a racist.”

One thing’s certain: Do No Harm will continue to speak out. And we’ll continue to rally doctors to defend healthcare from being destroyed by woke ideology.

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This Anti-Racist Healthcare Policy Benefits the Elite and Hurts Patients

Competition for the most prestigious post-graduate medical residency programs is fierce, with a proven track record of elevating the best physicians. Yet anti-racist ideology is now corrupting the residency evaluation process. Not only will patient care suffer, but the most elite and privileged physicians stand to gain the most.

The United States Medical Licensing Examination is the test that future physicians take before being assigned to a residency. Earlier this year, it ditched a numerical grading score in its first section. Instead of receiving a numerical grade, future physicians would instead get a “pass” or a “fail.” Driven by woke activists, the organizations behind the exam argued that a pass/fail system would lead to a more diverse group of physicians chosen on a “holistic” basis. This fits with the anti-racist claim that meritocracy is merely a manifestation of systemic racism.

But a growing body of evidence proves the foolishness of this decision. Previously, the first part of the USMLE test gave residency evaluators the best gauge of a candidate’s abilities. Now, without any objective criteria for choosing residents, students are increasingly selected based on the ranking of their medical schools. This hurts minority applicants from the lower ranked medical schools, including those affiliated with historically black colleges and universities. It also hurts other outstanding students from other less prestigious medical schools.

What’s more, the pass/fail system discourages medical excellence by incentivizing medical students not to study hard, as various specialties have pointed out. Residency directors are also frustrated that it’s now much harder to ensure that they’re picking the best candidates who will provide the best care. In both cases, the result is worse patient care over time, driven by a decline in the quality of residency participants.

Even woke residency program directors are frustrated. A new study at the National Library of Medicine concludes that, given the failure of the new pass/fail system, “further changes are needed to promote equity.” Here’s an idea: Go back to the proven system of evaluating medical students, which is the best way to find talented physicians who provide the best care.

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HHS Secretary Lies About His Own Anti-Racism Policy

Why isn’t the Biden administration being honest about its anti-racism healthcare policies? That’s the question after Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra testified to Congress last week. 

Sec. Becerra said there’s no policy that bribes doctors to implement divisive and potentially discriminatory anti-racism plans. But there is. As Do No Harm has documented, HHS is offering higher Medicare reimbursement rates to physicians who embrace such plans. Anti-racism requires treating patients differently based on skin color, which means providing preferential care for some while deprioritizing care for others.

Kudos to Alabama Rep. Gary Palmer and Missouri Rep. Jason Smith for pressing Sec. Becerra on the issue. Yet in response to their questions, the Biden administration’s top healthcare official said the existence of his own policy is “misinformation.”

Do No Harm immediately responded, pointing directly to the federal regulations that detail this policy. Our Chairman, Dr. Stan Goldfarb, made clear:

“Secretary Becerra should level with the public about what his agency is doing. If he thinks paying doctors more as a reward for compliance with woke policies is a good idea, he should say so. And if he was unaware that this is what his agency is doing, he needs to withdraw the policy immediately. The only misinformation we heard today came from Secretary Becerra.”

Americans deserve to know that radical ideology is sweeping over healthcare. And they deserve to know that the Biden administration is behind the push to put division and discrimination in the doctor’s office – even if the HHS Sec. Becerra refuses to admit it.

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Radical Activism Will Ruin Medical Residencies

The medical residency is an essential part of physician education, yet it’s now being targeted by radical activists. Harvard University’s teaching hospital is leading the charge, and as its actions show, medical excellence and individual health will only go backwards as a result. 

To understand what’s happening, you first have to understand the residency process. Every year, thousands of medical students apply to various hospitals to continue their training with hands-on experience. The residency lasts three to seven years, and historically, medical students get accepted or rejected based largely on their test scores. The whole point is to uphold the highest standards of medical care and train the best possible physicians.

But high standards don’t mix with “anti-racist” ideology. At Harvard’s teaching hospital, Brigham and Women’s, the residency program has deliberately lowered standards in the name of diversity. Specifically, it has de-emphasized test scores in favor of “holistic reviews of all applicants.” Never mind that test scores are generally the best indicator of a physician’s ability to provide the best care to patients.

It gets worse. Harvard’s hospital has also forced the faculty and experts who pick residents to undergo “unconscious bias training.” That’s code for pushing them to focus on skin color, not academic expertise or individual excellence. 

Driving these changes is the activist view that more minority physicians will lead to better healthcare and outcomes for minority patients. Yet studies have found no evidence supporting this claim. If residency participants are chosen by race and not strictly on academic performance, the result will not be better care for some, but worse care for all. Lower standards for medical residencies mean lower standards for patient care.

What Harvard’s hospital is doing is a direct threat to patient health – and this same trend is already spreading nationwide. For the sake of physicians and patients alike, it must be stopped.

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Massachusetts Mandates Ideology for Doctors

Massachusetts doctors are being force-fed radical and divisive ideology. That’s the reality of a new mandate from the state Board of Registration in Medicine. 

Beginning June 1, 2022, any doctors applying for or renewing a medical license must complete courses on “implicit bias in healthcare.” When this mandate goes into effect, doctors will be pressured into focusing on their patients’ skin color and making care decisions based on racial groups, not individual medical needs. It also completely ignores that doctors already have a code of ethics that spurs them to treat their patients with the personalized care they deserve.

Here are the details. Massachusetts is demanding that current or future doctors take two credits of continuing medical education grounded in activist ideas. The board provides three approved courses that doctors can choose from, two of which are necessary to fulfilling the requirement. The list includes courses entitled “Unconscious Bias in Medicine” and “Reflecting on Health Disparities and Moving Towards Anti-Racism in Medicine.” 

The former course, offered by Stanford, has no basis in medical science. It promises to help doctors discover their “unconscious bias in everyday interactions with patients, students, colleagues, and team members.” It also recommends the Implicit Bias Test, a Harvard tool that has been discredited and even criticized by its creators.

The latter course is no better. It is focused on helping doctors “provide care that is more consciously equitable,” yet in practice, that means making care decisions based on race. The name for that is discrimination, which anti-racism explicitly demands.

Massachusetts is wrong to force these dangerous and disproven ideas on doctors. The state’s doctors should learn about better ways to care for patients, not how to become radical activists.

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How States Are Forcing Ideology Into Healthcare

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Is your state pushing divisive and discriminatory policies onto healthcare? It’s a question every patient should ask. At least three states made race a factor in determining who gets access to potentially lifesaving COVID treatments. Activists won’t rest until every state takes the same path, and not just on COVID.

Take New York. The Empire State recently issued guidelines for healthcare providers regarding monoclonal antibodies and oral antivirals – two popular yet often scarce forms of treatment amid the pandemic. The guidelines state that people with certain risk factors get priority access, and shockingly, one of the factors is being “non-White race.” Why, you ask? Because of “longstanding systemic health and social inequities.” That’s radical ideology talking, not medical science.

It’s a similar story in Minnesota. There, patients were given access to certain COVID treatments if they had enough points in a scoring system. Simply being non-White counted for two points – half the number needed. Utah also assigned two points to minority patients. The name for that is racial preferences, and it’s the opposite of the personalized medical care that every patient deserves.

The good news is that Utah and Minnesota backed down after the broader public caught wind. They promptly ditched discriminatory, race-based rankings. Sadly, New York persisted in making racial discrimination an official state policy – with the support of the American Medical Association, no less!

The bad news is that this is a sign of what’s to come across all of healthcare and every type of illness. Recognizing that reality is essential to stopping such discrimination in your state.

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Do No Harm Will Lead the Fight Against Divisive Ideology Hurting Healthcare

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

WASHINGTON, April 19, 2022 – Today is the launch of Do No Harm, a national nonprofit dedicated to protecting patients and physicians from woke healthcare. (Learn more at donoharmmedicine.org.)

Do No Harm will empower patients, medical professionals, and a diversity of Americans to promote medical fairness and equal access to care, while opposing the division and discrimination that result from identity politics and threaten the health and well-being of every American.

“I’m confident that most physicians oppose what’s happening to our profession and want to see a course correction,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm. “We created Do No Harm to protect those individuals who are concerned that speaking out will damage their careers and risk harassment for their views. We want to stop this infiltration of politics in the healthcare system and particularly into medical education before it impacts quality and access to care.”

The new non-profit is made up of medical professionals, practitioners, and advocates who believe the patient is more important than political ideology when recommending and providing care. By providing a voice to concerned medical professionals afraid of speaking out, Do No Harm will take on the racially divisive ideology that threatens the quality of care in America.

“Replacing rigorous, science-based medical care with ideologically driven demands of activists is dangerous. We know that woke medical education and research are already impacting healthcare providers, and now federal and state policymakers are forcing woke policies into medicine,” said Kristina Rasmussen, executive director of Do No Harm. “Woke discrimination hurts the people it claims to help, and we’re focused on making healthcare better, fairer, and more accessible for all.”

According to Rasmussen, Do No Harm will shine a light on the divisive policies and practices that are increasingly evident across healthcare. It will do so through lawsuits, advocacy, original research, and aggressive communications at the national and state levels.

“We can’t wait. Radical ideology and identity politics are gaining ground by the day,” said Goldfarb. “The sooner we help people realize this, the sooner we can rally a movement to roll back woke healthcare and promote the high-quality care that every American deserves.”


For more information and future updates about Do No Harm, visit their website at www.donoharmmedicine.org and follow them on Twitter [@donoharm].

ABOUT DO NO HARM: 

Do No Harm is a non-partisan non-profit that rallies physicians and patients to stop a radical, divisive takeover of healthcare. Do No Harm believes in medical fairness, equal access, and individualized treatment for every patient, without exception.

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A Case Study In Faulty Woke Studies

The National Library of Medicine records over 2,700 published studies on “racism and medicine.” As our Chairman, Dr. Stan Goldfarb, has pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, these studies tend to be “shoddily designed, ignore critical factors, or reach pre-determined and sensationalized conclusions.” Real Clear Investigations recently asked Dr. Goldfarb to review one study in particular – and that criticism rings true.

The study comes from a recent edition of the prominent medical journal Health Affairs, which devoted its February issue to medicine and race, generally from the perspective of Critical Race Theory. Authored by researchers from Duke University and Florida State University, the study claims to show that “that racialized disenfranchisement” – as in, blocking felons from voting – “affects health.” 

The authors admit they can’t prove this claim, yet they make the case for it anyway, on the grounds that there is a “theoretical basis.” Dr. Goldberg skewers this lazy approach to scholarly research:

“This approach just drives me crazy. It’s basically finding associations and claiming it proves causality. They are going to find evidence for their theory because they are trying to do everything they can to prove their theory.”

Sadly, such substandard and unscientific studies are increasingly par for the course across America’s most respected medical journals. Let’s be clear: This isn’t medical research, it’s anti-racist propaganda. And while it claims to move healthcare forward, it will only hold back medical progress and patient health.

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Patients: Protect Your Healthcare

Have you had medical care delayed or denied based on your race?

The rise of “Critical Race Theory” and “Anti-Racism” in healthcare is causing medical providers to factor in race and gender when determining who gets potentially life-saving treatment. These discriminatory policies are a direct threat to patient health – and they likely violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution. It’s possible these policies have been implemented without patient knowledge.

If you have experienced such discrimination, or if you know about race-based policies at your healthcare provider, please let us know. We’ll work with you to diagnose the problem and find potential cures.

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Employees: Protect Your Rights

Have you been forced to participate in “anti-racist” or “DEI” training?

Hospitals, doctor’s offices, and medical providers are implementing mandatory training courses that are grounded in divisive ideology. Employees are often forced to participate in extreme exercises that are demeaning and discriminatory. While these trainings are described as promoting “anti-racism” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” they are explicitly race-based and dangerous for healthcare.

If you have participated in these trainings or work at a provider that will soon implement them, please let us know. We’ll work with you to push back and keep your workplace free of ideology.

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Parents: Protect Your Children

Is your child’s school nurse pushing dangerous and harmful ideology?

Nurses at K-12 schools are increasingly using “Critical Race Theory,” “Anti-Racism,” and other divisive ideas to guide their interactions with students. Such ideas are inappropriate and may lead to worse levels of care for your child.

If your child has encountered ideology from the school nurse, please let us know. We’ll work with you to hold your school accountable and keep your child safe.

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How Anti-Racism Leads To Discriminatory Care

This month marks the one-year anniversary of a thoroughly woke – and truly disturbing – healthcare policy. In April 2021, Vermont put racial discrimination at the center of the state’s COVID-19 vaccination rollout. It’s worth remembering what happened, so we can work to ensure it never happen again.

In the early days of COVID-19 vaccines, the most vulnerable populations were put at the front of the line. The main focus was on the elderly, and Vermont was no exception: People age 50 and older were initially able to register for vaccines. Then radical ideology got involved.

Vermont Governor Phil Scott announced that individuals who are BIPOC – which stands for “Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color” – could register for the vaccine as young as 16 years old, while everyone else wasn’t eligible unless they were much older. It was a clear-cut case of doling out a critical treatment on the basis of skin color, not medical need. That’s exactly the kind of discrimination that “anti-racism” requires. It left fewer vaccines for the most vulnerable Vermonters.

The media lauded this backwards policy, saying things like “it’s not even that big of a deal,” while the Governor labeled opposition to the policy a “racist response.” Yet what’s actually racist is making skin color the determining factor in whether someone gets potentially life-saving treatment.

Activists are demanding exactly that, and not just with COVID vaccines. Americans of all races should oppose such discrimination for the sake of their own health.

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The American Medical Association Embraces Radical Activism

The American Medical Association is at the forefront of the radical takeover of healthcare. Look no further than its “strategic plan to dismantle structural racism,” which is really an instruction manual for embedding racial discrimination into every part of medicine.

In announcing the plan, the AMA came out with plenty of platitudes about “achieving optimal health for all” and promoting “the betterment of public health.” These things are very important and urgently needed, but the plan’s details will undermine those critical goals. Why? Because its main focus is “implementing anti-racist equity strategies via practices, programming, policies, and culture.”

Those words are code for putting group health over individual medical needs and looking at every medical decision and interaction through the lens of race. Such is the nature of anti-racism, and as we’ve already seen, it leads to giving preferential treatment to people of specific races and harming the health of vulnerable patients.

Patients will suffer as the AMA’s demands seep into healthcare – and so will the physicians the AMA claims to represent. They’ll find it harder to help the individual patient in front of them, which isn’t why they devoted their lives to the practice of medicine. They swore an oath to “do no harm,” yet anti-racism is the road to harm. 

Physicians will also be turned into political activists, since the AMA wants to equip them with the “tools for dismantling structural and social drivers of health inequities.” The name for that is politicking, and it has no place in the American Medical Association, much less healthcare as a whole.

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Don’t Let Ideology Ruin Medical Research

Medical research matters to the health and well-being of every American. So it matters when leading healthcare academic journals put ideology, not new innovation or actionable information, at the heart of their work. Look no further than Health Affairs, one of the most respected publications in medicine, which has created a strategy to “dismantle racism” in medical research.

At the core of Health Affairs’ strategy is the obsession with the skin color of everyone involved in medical scholarship. Since the start of this year, it has required study authors and reviewers to answer “questions about their race, ethnicity, and gender.” The publication will soon issue statistical reports on the racial and gender makeup of those involved in its work. Yet such race-based reporting goes well beyond medical research, nor does it advance the scholarship on which medical progress depends.

What’s more concerning is what Health Affairs is doing once the data is in hand. It plans to select study reviewers and commission new papers based on people’s race, which runs counter to the purpose of the publication. The determining factor in such decisions should be expertise, not identity. Yet under the radical and divisive ideology of “anti-racism,” identity is more important than anything else.

Whether it’s Health Affairs or any other medical journal, the focus should be on empowering physicians to deliver better treatments and care to their patients. Choosing reviewers and study authors based on skin color will not advance a noble and necessary goal. And ultimately, giving in to activists’ demands will hold back the medical progress that Americans deserve.

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What Is A “Race Calculator”? And Why Should You Care?

Does your doctor or hospital use a so-called “race calculator” to determine who gets medical care? It’s a question every patient needs to ask. These blatantly discriminatory policies are the direct result of divisive anti-racist ideology and they’re rapidly spreading across healthcare.

A “race calculator” is exactly what it sounds like: A tool that takes a patient’s race into account when determining whether he or she gets medical treatment. If you are a patient of a certain race, you are more likely to receive the care you need, whereas if you’re a member of other races, you are less likely. Race calculators are steeped in identity politics and antithetical to providing personalized care to individual patients, which is what healthcare is supposed to do.

Race calculators are more and more common. Consider SSM Health, a hospital chain in four midwestern states. It used this discriminatory practice to determine which patients would receive COVID-19 therapeutics. Fortunately, it backed off after being called out by a local Wisconsin advocacy group.

State health departments are pushing the same kind of policies at a statewide level. Minnesota and Utah both rescinded their policies after justified public pressure, but states like New York are pushing ahead. The American Medical Association has thrown its weight behind New York’s race calculator, even though it’s incompatible with physicians’ oath to “do no harm.”

These policies are set to become more common, not less. One reason is that the federal government is bribing physicians to develop “anti-racism” plans, which could include implementing race calculators. Every patient should ask if their healthcare provider is engaged in such blatant discrimination, and if so, demand an end to it and the return of fairness and equal healthcare access for all.

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Washington Health Workshop: No Whites Allowed

Washington state just provided the latest proof that anti-racism in healthcare leads to discrimination. The King County Department of Human Resources recently held a health workshop purporting to show that dieting is racist, and when a white employee attempted to join, he was promptly kicked out.

The employee was initially told he was removed because of a “technical issue,” but the county eventually admitted his skin color was the determining factor. Tellingly, he wasn’t kicked out until he turned on his video camera, meaning he was only banned once his identity was visible. It turns out the workshop was also advertised as being open only to members of specific races – a clear act of discrimination.

What’s more, the workshop itself was full of divisive anti-racist ideology. Entitled “Anti-Blackness and Diet Culture,” it focused on how “Western ideals” of health “are steeped in whiteness” and therefore illegitimate. Similar language is cropping up across the entire healthcare landscape, underpinning the activist argument that healthcare as a whole is systemically racist.

Welcome to woke healthcare. It has no time for people of certain races, yet all the time in the world for divisive and discriminatory ideas. What just happened in Washington state is a sign of what’s quietly happening to healthcare across America. It needs to stop – now. 

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Good News: Midwest Hospital Drops Race-Based COVID Discrimination

A Midwestern hospital chain recently put the kibosh on a key demand from radical activists. Missouri-based SSM Health reversed its plans to dole out COVID-19 treatments based in part on race. Physicians and patients alike should celebrate this victory over discrimination in healthcare.

SSM’s move came after the hospital initially jumped on the discrimination bandwagon. During the COVID spike late last year, activists pushed to get hospitals and other medical providers to take race into account when distributing monoclonal antibody treatments. Specifically, they wanted to force physicians to give more treatments to minority patients, while withholding those treatments from others.

That’s discrimination – and that was the point. The divisive ideology behind this policy explicitly holds that skin color should determine who gets medical care. Yet that cuts at the heart of health care. Patients should get the best medical care regardless of who they are, what they look like, or where they come from. Each and every patient deserves personalized care, without exception.

SSM’s decision is a victory for fairness. It’s also proof that concerned Americans can drive positive change. The hospital chain took action after receiving a letter from a public interest group in Wisconsin, where it operates eight facilities. The about-face should inspire more physicians and patients to speak out and oppose radical ideology at every level of healthcare.

After all, this Midwestern hospital isn’t the only one trying to discriminate by race. And it’s not the only one where public pressure can make a difference.

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Healthcare Needs Real Solutions, Not Reparations

Most people want healthcare to help them lead better, happier, healthier lives. However, most people aren’t professors at Harvard Medical School, two of whom are demanding that healthcare focus less on helping individual patients and more on supporting federal reparations for slavery.

That’s the takeaway from a recent piece in the Boston Review, entitled “An Anti-Racist Agenda For Medicine,” which broadly captures the worldview of the radical activists targeting healthcare. The two Harvard professors admit to relying on Critical Race Theory, which helped them recognize the “institutional racism” that apparently surrounds them. Unsurprisingly, this divisive theory leads the Harvard professors to call for divisive actions.

To start, they want “race-explicit interventions,” which is code for discriminating against patients when providing treatments or care.  They outright reject the idea of being “colorblind,” which they call ineffective. Never mind that their own ideology comes with a hefty dose of blindness. It demands that physicians put people in racial groups, which blocks them from seeing – and serving – patients’ unique needs.

Finally, the professors call for reparations, which they rebrand as “medical restitution.” They make a tortured argument that reparations are fundamentally a matter of healthcare, but that’s not medical science talking. It’s politics, and politics has no place in medicine.

There’s no doubt that barriers keep people from accessing medical care. But the solution is to break those barriers, not create new ones by discriminating on the basis of race and putting healthcare in the middle of divisive political debates. Patients needs real solutions, not reparations.