Race-Based Medicine: Ted Talk By Dorothy Roberts

Dorothy Roberts is social justice advocate and law scholar who preaches the message that race-based medicine is bad medicine. She believes that doctors use race, instead of tests and observations, as a shortcut to give diagnoses. Her main argument is that there is only one race, the human race. In her Ted Talk, Roberts goes over statistics to explain why she thinks that race-based medicine is barbaric and shouldn’t be practiced.
Race-based medicine is not meant to divide people, but rather to give better medical help to people of a certain demographic. Race-based medicine is created based on knowledge of predispositions of any given race. For example, it is a fact that heart disease is the leading cause of death for racial groups including African-Americans, Hispanics, and whites in the United States. When medical experts have this knowledge, the process of making diagnoses is

largely facilitated. Knowing a person’s race gives the doctor an idea of what to look for based on what diseases are commonly found in people of that respective race.
Racism is a completely different issue than race-based medicine. In her argument, Roberts makes race-based medicine out as a form of racism. Racism is the discrimination of a group of people based on characteristics of people. Racists look at people of a certain group as inferior to themselves. Race-based medicine is in no way similar to racism. Race-based medicine is meant to help patients. Although it is true that everybody is different and race is not always an accurate indicator of a disease, it still gives doctors insight on how to treat the patient.
Roberts focuses on ethos and pathos to make her argument. Although she does use logos, which makes her argument valid, her facts are very misleading and biased. She references a test where the creatinine level estimate in the same blood sample were measured but different results were produced when different races were entered into the machine. The key word in her statement is “estimate”. The testing device gives an accurate estimate of how much creatinine is in the patient’s blood based on many different factors, one of which being race. If any of the factors were altered, the result would obviously deviate as well; saying that race was the only reason the results differed is simply false. Again, this controversial topic brings up the question of ethics, and Roberts uses ethos to to get her argument across. She argues that technically all humans contain the same biology. She also goes on to say that race is exclusively a social classification created by lawmakers and not people of the biological field. Yes humans all are the same biologically at the most basic level, and yes race is a social classification, these statements are very misleading and vague.There is an abundant amount of scientific evidence to prove that humans of different races and ethnicities are predisposed to different diseases. This classification is not meant to make a barrier between people.
Roberts states that many race-based medical methods used during times of slavery, are still used today. She specifically refers to the lung capacity. Roberts refers to a doctor in the late 1800s who was a specialist in, what was then called “negro medicine.” This doctor said that more fieldwork was good for African-Americans because it promoted a better lung capacity. Roberts makes a very personal connection with her audience here. Logical people agree that racism is looked down upon and that the slavery era was a very shameful time for the United States of America. Roberts’ argument is made so the audience member almost feels racist if he or she disagrees with Roberts’ point of view. The truth is, modern science proves that African-Americans have a smaller lung capacity than other races. A 6 year study conducted by Johns Hopkins University showed that African-Americans naturally have a smaller lung capacity relative to Caucasians. Clearly modern doctors will not prescribe fieldwork for a disease related to small lung capacity, instead they will assign some type of cardiovascular activity. This is not racism, just science that will help improve the quality of service patients receive.
Roberts brings up a good point when she states that doctors often use race as a shortcut when diagnosing a disease.

This can potentially be a problem as all humans are different, and therefore each case is different. Race can sometimes be a misleading factor that leads to a false, premature diagnosis but this is so rare. When diagnosing a disease, medical professionals send results into a lab to be tested. Stating that knowing the race of a patient often causes misdiagnoses is absurd.
Dorothy Roberts makes a compelling argument, at first glance, against race-based medicine. She stated many facts in her lecture which gave her argument legitimacy, but under further investigation it was discovered that many of her statistics were manipulated. The strongest part of her argument was when she incorporated ethos and pathos to convince the reader that race-based medicine was in fact racist. Her overall argument was strong, and was probably enough to convince an unbiased audience member. The major flaw with Roberts’ argument was the manipulation of statistics, and the lack legitimate

sources.