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The Importance Of Racial Profiling In Education

Decent Essays

The current events in the country, including the racial profiling of African Americans by police officers, have made race a delicate issue to speak about. Racial profiling is more commonly addressed in law and politics; however, it is also deeply rooted in today’s medicine. Physicians like Sally Satel, and researchers like Esteban Bruchard, encourage racial profiling by using race as an indicator for certain diseases and treatment. On the other hand, researcher Clarence Gravlee incorporates genetic ancestry and social aspects that can affect health outcomes, thereby demonstrating the importance of using other factors besides race. Racial profiling in medicine leads to race being used as a primary diagnostic tool, reinforces the idea that certain races inherit biological features, and it encourages a pharmaceutical market that targets specific races. Through a clinical lens, physicians like Satel are using race, in addition to typical factors like age and medical history, to treat and diagnose their patients. Satel claims that certain races are more prone to certain diseases, and by using their race it allows for a quicker differential diagnosis. She includes examples of racial differences seen in medical treatments, such as slower metabolism of antidepressants in African Americans, medications for heart failure more effective in whites, and higher salivation in African Americans during intubation. Yet, all her noted findings were refuted. For instance, careful review of

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