VICTOR JOECKS: For sake of DEI, more black people must die

Last month, the American Heart Association unveiled a new risk calculator for heart attack, stroke and heart failure. Getting this right is literally a matter of life and death. Heart disease is the country’s leading cause of death. The goal is to identify an individual’s risk of developing problems over 10 years and 30 years.

This is actionable information, because 90 percent of heart disease is preventable. If a doctor learns someone has an elevated risk of heart disease, he can help his patient change his lifestyle. For many, that would be a literal lifesaver.

One would assume the AHA would include every useful factor in crafting its calculator, but it didn’t. Past versions of this tool included race. That makes sense, because black Americans are at a higher risk of heart disease than white Americans.

But the AHA took this fact out of its new calculator because “we were concerned that the inclusion of race as a proxy may still be harmful.” You see, including race as a factor would lead to more black Americans being told they’re at risk of heart disease.

In the real world, that makes sense because black Americans have a higher risk of heart disease. In the world of critical race theory and offshoots such as diversity, equity and inclusion, this is verboten because it produces a racial disparity. The mere existence of a negative racial disparity is seen as evidence of racism and must be eliminated. Therefore, race is out in the new calculator.

Sadiya Khan, the doctor who chaired the AHA’s statement writing committee, told The New York Times, “Race is a social construct.” Leave aside the irony of the most race-obsessed people on the planet believing this.

The AHA said race was previously used as a proxy for other factors. Now, including social inputs such as education, poverty, unemployment and environment factors will be an option “if available.”

Khan said that including race in medical formulas such as this “can cause significant harm by implying that it is a biological predictor.”

You know actually causes significant harm? The AHA’s calculator not telling a black man that he’s at risk of heart disease when it could have projected this by including his race. And that harm isn’t merely theoretical or academic. It’s the kind of harm that leads to more black deaths.

The AHA claims its new calculator “has similar accuracy among varied racial and ethnic groups.” But it also notes, “there are clear racial and ethnic disparities in CVD (cardiovascular disease) risk factors and in the incidence of CVD among people based on the social construct of race and ethnicity.” Good luck reconciling those statements.

Making predictions decades into the future is hard. Every factor that could help flag if someone is at risk of developing heart disease should be included. Instead, the AHA infused critical race theory into its calculator.

The result is easy to foresee. For the sake of DEI, more black people will die.

Victor Joecks’ column appears in the Opinion section each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Listen to him discuss his columns each Monday at 7 a.m. with Kevin Wall on AM 670 KMZQ Right Talk. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on X.