I’d like to say that what just happened at the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is the canary in the coal mine as to the destruction that critical race theory, in the form of the neo-racist “anti-racism” deception, is wreaking on the sciences.
But that canary long ago died from the toxic fumes of an ideology in which race is the obsessive focus of activists seeking to tear down supposedly systemically racist structures.
I warned in 2017 that the hard sciences would not be immune to the poison that already had destroyed the humanities and social sciences:
I don’t know if there are any uncorrupted institutions left that matter. The education system, from public grade school through public and private higher ed, is gone. The frontal assault on free speech on campuses is the result. If you think this is just a Humanities and Social Sciences problem, stay tuned. In 3-5 years, if we’re still here, we’ll be writing about how the social justice warriors have corrupted the STEM fields. It’s happening now, it’s just not in the headlines yet.
And so it has come to pass in medicine. We pointed in an earlier post to what is happening at SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, NY, and that is symptomatic of what is happening at medical schools around the nation.
JAMA is infected. The Editor-in-Chief has been placed on leave because one of his Deputy Editors disagreed in a podcast whether structural racism is a problem in medicine.
The NY Times reports:
Following controversial comments on racism in medicine made by a deputy editor at JAMA, the editor in chief of the prominent medical journal was placed on administrative leave on Thursday.A committee of the American Medical Association, which oversees the journal, said Dr. Howard Bauchner would be replaced by an interim editor pending results of an independent investigation. The decision was announced on Thursday in an email to employees.JAMA is one of the world’s leading medical journals, publishing research that shapes the scientific agenda and public policy around the globe. The controversy began when Dr. Ed Livingston, a deputy editor, said on a Feb. 24 podcast that structural racism no longer existed in the United States.“Structural racism is an unfortunate term,” said Dr. Livingston, who is white. “Personally, I think taking racism out of the conversation will help. Many people like myself are offended by the implication that we are somehow racist.”
This is wrong on two levels — one that a Deputy Editor cannot disagree as to structural racism in medicine, and two that his Editor-in-Chief would be held responsible.
The Times continues:
The podcast was promoted with a tweet from the journal that said, “No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care?” The response to both was swift and angry, prompting the journal to take down the podcast and delete the tweet.A week later, Dr. Bauchner addressed the controversy. “Comments made in the podcast were inaccurate, offensive, hurtful, and inconsistent with the standards of JAMA,” Dr. Bauchner said in a statement. “We are instituting changes that will address and prevent such failures from happening again.”Dr. Livingston later resigned….
Many in the medical community said that the journal had not gone far enough and that the events offered an opportunity to make more systemic changes. In an email sent to leaders of the A.M.A., a group of doctors called for “a careful investigation of the JAMA editorial staff and board, up to and including the removal of Dr. Howard Bauchner.”
The authors also initiated a petition, now signed by nearly 7,000 people, asking the journal to hold Dr. Bauchner accountable and to review and restructure the editorial process.
Here is Dr. Bauchner groveling in a subsequent JAMA panel discussion on Structural Racism In Medicine:
As happens on many college campuses, JAMA capitulated to weaponized emotions, the Times further reported:
“That podcast should never have happened,” said Dr. Uché Blackstock, an emergency physician in New York. “That tweet should never have happened. The fact that podcast was conceived of, recorded and posted was unconscionable.”
“I think it caused an incalculable amount of pain and trauma to Black physicians and patients,” she said. “And I think it’s going to take a long time for the journal to heal that pain.”
The JAMA history has been purged, the NY Post reports:
The podcast’s audio has been deleted from JAMA’s website and replaced with a statement from Bauchner in which he said comments in the podcast — which also featured Dr. Mitch Katz — were “inaccurate, offensive, hurtful and inconsistent with the standards of JAMA.”He added: “Racism and structural racism exist in the US and in health care. After careful consideration, I determined that the harms caused by the podcast outweighed any reason for the podcast to remain available on the JAMA Network.“I once again apologize for the harms caused by this podcast and the tweet about the podcast. We are instituting changes that will address and prevent such failures from happening again,” Bauchner added.Also deleted from the site was a JAMA tweet promoting the podcast that said: “No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care? An explanation of the idea by doctors for doctors in this user-friendly podcast.”
Medicine and other professions, including law, are being destroyed from within. You just don’t know it yet.
Don’t call medicine a victim of “wokeness” — that is too kind a word.
Our society cannot withstand this poison. That’s the point of it, isn’t it.
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