Race Is Often Used as Medical Shorthand for How Bodies Work. Some Doctors Want to Change That.

Posted in Articles, Audio, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive, United States on 2022-06-21 14:28Z by Steven

Race Is Often Used as Medical Shorthand for How Bodies Work. Some Doctors Want to Change That.

KHN (Kaiser Health News)
2022-06-13

Rae Ellen Bichell, Colorado Correspondent

Cara Anthony, Midwest Correspondent

When Pat Holterman-Hommes read in 2021 that her former colleague, Alphonso Harried, was waiting for a kidney transplant, she wanted to see if she could donate one. (Joe Martinez for KHN)

SciFri · Some Doctors Want To Change How Race Is Used In Medicine

Several months ago, a lab technologist at Barnes-Jewish Hospital mixed the blood components of two people: Alphonso Harried, who needed a kidney, and Pat Holterman-Hommes, who hoped to give him one.

The goal was to see whether Harried’s body would instantly see Holterman-Hommes’ organ as a major threat and attack it before surgeons could finish a transplant. To do that, the technologist mixed in fluorescent tags that would glow if Harried’s immune defense forces would latch onto the donor’s cells in preparation for an attack. If, after a few hours, the machine found lots of glowing, it meant the kidney transplant would be doomed. It stayed dark: They were a match.

“I was floored,” said Harried…

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