Medical journals published no fewer than fifty commentaries, editorials, and articles calling for its abolition.
In a 2020 letter to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, senators Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, and Cory Booker and Representative Barbara Lee expressed their concerns that GFR race-correction and other race-based algorithms risked embedding racism into medical practice.
Importantly, none of the petitions, none of the government actions, and none of the medical and news articles acknowledged one simple fundamental fact: blacks and non-blacks received exactly the same diagnosis and medical treatment based on their very best estimate of directly measured GFR. Nevertheless, in response to pressure from students, activists, and Congress, the National Kidney Foundation and the American Society of Nephrology redefined GFR by recalculating the GFR formula without the race correction.
Removing race from the equation distorted the estimated GFR to favor CKD diagnoses in blacks and disfavor CKD diagnoses in non-blacks.
Medicare coverage of medical nutrition therapy and kidney disease education will be withheld from 1.9 million non-blacks so that an estimated 206,200 additional blacks gain access.
The new race-free formula fails the NKF/ASN assurances that any change in GFR would be unbiased, based on rigorous science, and acceptable performance characteristics and would not disproportionately affect any one group of individuals.
Recent gallop surveys show the public holds medical professionals in high regard, medical doctors and pharmacists compared to journalists, lawyers, and members of congress.
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