The American Academy of Pediatrics Chair has announced a new policy to eliminate race-based guidance in order to address systemic and structural inequities in pediatric health care. Dr. Nia Heard-Garris, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Chicago Lurie Children's Hospital and the American Academy of Pediatrics chair on minority health, equity, and inclusion joined Cheddar News to talk about the change. "Now is our opportunity to try to right the wrongs and correct injustices that have been perpetuated over years," she said. "These algorithms and these guidelines and policies weren't intended to be racist or use race-based language that would harm Black, brown, and other folks of color, but that's exactly what they did."

Cheddar's News Wrap

Pediatric Group Looks to 'Right the Wrongs' by Ending Race-Based Medical Guidance

Welcome back to Chester's news wrap everybody if you're a parent or a young child listen up the american Academy of pediatrics making a big announcement today, I'm saying huge saying it will put all of its practice guidelines and policies under a microscope to weed out race based medicine. It turns out for years now, pediatricians have followed flawed guidelines that link race to health risks and Children and babies which could lead to all the health disparities we've been seeing joining me now to discuss is Dr Near Heard Garris, assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, attending physician of advanced general pediatrics at Chicago Lurie Children's Hospital and a ap chair on Minority Health equity and inclusion. Dr Heard Garris welcome to the show. You know, I was doing some research on this and you can't help but get a little upset knowing this has been going on for so long. So let's start from the beginning, the academy says it's begun purging outdated advice, but why did it make race based recommendations in the first place and why do this now? Why wait so long. Those are great questions and honestly, you know, racism pervades all of our systems. So it's not just medicine, it's banking, you know, its justice system everywhere and now is our opportunity to try to right the wrongs and correct injustices that have been perpetuated over years. So, you know, these these algorithms and these guidelines and policies weren't intended right to be racist or use race. Race based language that would harm black Brown and other folks of color, but that's exactly what they did. So when authors initially used race in some ways they were trying to correct and trying to close disparity gaps, but we know that race is not biologic so you can't separate, you know, a certain group just because of what they look like. But race is not is only skin deep really. And so what we're trying to do with this policy with this call out is to remove that underlying um race based adjustment so that everybody can have an equal playing field when it comes to diagnosis and treatment. So what are some of these race based recommendations that are being looked at now that are incorrect. Absolutely. Uh So some of the race based guidelines include things that are as simple as a urinary tract infection. So when kids get a urinary tract infection, thinking about who's at higher risk and who's at lower risk. So typically um for some diagnosis you get a score and the higher your score the more likely it is that you might have that diagnosis. And for years race was included in that score based on some pseudo science that was not robust in saying that black Children were at lower risk for getting a U. T. I. So that has been pulled out of the U. T. I. Guidelines. But other things when you think about more severe illnesses like chronic kidney disease and needing a kidney transplant. So based on pseudoscience again, things that took place during slavery times. Science then, you know, that said that black people had higher more and more muscle mass and therefore, you know, they don't need, you know, they have higher rates of kidney clearance, meaning they don't need a kidney transplant as soon as other people do right. Like the numbers were not the same. And so those are really big egregious things that need to be taken out of of medicine that racism that is underlying who gets treatment when they get treatment and how they get it. So on the other side, are there any race based recommendations that are in fact true dr heard Garris. So there are things that we have looked at that are more accurate, such as like having a genetic admixture of where your people are from. So just because someone is white appearing doesn't mean they don't have any african ancestry or they don't have um ancestry that is from different continents. So considering those type of add mixtures and you can't tell just by looking at somebody where their genetic and stressed street is from. And so that really requires more testing and more discussing with the patients and their families, not just based on how they actually look. And so some of those um add mixtures we've seen have more correlations with other illnesses and diseases, but you can't know by just having somebody walk into your your exam. Yeah, that that seems like common sense. I have less than a minute with you. But I want to ask how these guidelines guidelines impact the health of minorities. At least in the long term. I'm really excited about these guidelines because I think this is the first step of many. Hopefully that really speak to undo the harm and injustice to minority groups and historically oppressed population. So the ones that have earned distrust and mistrust of the medical community that we're trying to make steps to right those wrongs and so hopefully it'll close the gap um in those health disparities that we see. I love that we're talking about this. This is so important. Doctor Nia Heard Garris, assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, attending physician of advanced general pediatrics at Chicago Lurie Children's Hospital and American Academy of Pediatrics, Chair on Minority Health, Equity and inclusion. Doctor please come back soon. Thank you.