The other day, I listened to my weekly 15 minute dose of Fox News. Although Fox would classify me as a granola eating, Birkenstock wearing, Tesla driving, LL Bean wearing leftie, I think it’s important to at least try to listen to the other side’s point of view. So I do. I find I can take about 15 minutes of their rage invoking vitriol, then I flip to NPR as an antidote.
However, the particular segment I happened upon was, at least on the surface, calm and measured. A commentator was taking the American Centers for Disease Control to task for posting an article on Racism and Health. I believe she was upset by the fact that the CDC would publish anything at all about race. She went on to claim that the CDC had linked racism with poor health outcomes without backing it up with any facts. She said if the CDC was going to make claims like this, then it needed to show the evidence for it.
Which got me thinking. Sure, the CDC should back it up with evidence. Just because I own a red Ferrari, doesn’t mean that someone should make a claim without backing it up. On the surface, I can certainly accept the CDC’s claim that “racism is a serious threat to the public’s health”. First, it’s the CDC making the claim. At that point, full stop, I believe. However, I put my skeptic's hat on. The Fox commentator had a point. There should be proof.
So, because I have that kind of time, I went to the CDC web site. On the right side of their home page, as you can see in the screen grab below, is the article to which the Fox commentator was referring.
CDC home page screen grab
I clicked through on the article. And I read it. I don’t think the Fox commentator did.
Because if she did, she’d find six links to evidence of systemic racism resulting in poor outcomes for racialized minorities. She’d find a position paper by Camara Jones, M.D., M.P.H., PhD, defining racism, the structures around it and how it influences medical outcomes. Dr. Jones says, “a Martian could look at the distribution of housing or education or income in the United States and quickly conclude that there is something systematic going on by 'race' in this country”. This paper was written in 2003.
The Fox commentator could have clicked the link on social determinants of health to learn that “where people live, learn, work and play [that] affect a wide range of health and quality-of-life-risks and outcomes”. Or how racism deprives the country of a community that might produce the next Jonas Salk or Thomas Edison.
But no. The Fox commentator said the CDC had no evidence that racism results in poorer health outcomes for visible minorities. In Dr. Jones’ paper, the she states, “A growing number of scientists hypothesize that racism is a fundamental cause of 'racial' and ethnic disparities in health outcomes”, and goes on to cite 19 sources for this claim.
Fact checking the Fox commentator was daunting. This was an incredibly hard, exhausting search. I had to figure out how to find the CDC web site. If only there was a tool for that. Once found, one click later, (my poor wrist) I was at their home page. One click later, (will this never end?) I was on the page about racism. Took me about 20 seconds. Then I worked through the links on that page.
But the Fox audience was left thinking that the CDC is making wild claims about racism and health impacts. Without evidence. How many viewers did their own fact checking? I’d wager precious few.
The irony here is beyond the pale. The same network that claimed voting machines were rigged, that 7,000 county clerks were involved in a vast conspiracy to cheat the American people in the last Presidential Election and that there was massive mail-in ballot fraud without a shred of evidence, claimed that one of the most respected scientific organizations in the world would put forth a position without evidence.
Maybe the CDC should rip a page out of the Dominion Voting Machine company’s playbook. They’re suing Fox news for $1.6 Billion saying Fox spread false claims about their machines being involved in voter fraud.
I'll leave you with a splash of colour from the New York Botanical Garden Orchid Festival.
