(NewsWorthy.news) – Reports have revealed the degree of disparity in cases of kidney disease, which pose a serious public health issue. African Americans are three times more likely to develop kidney failure than White Americans, and kidney disease is especially severe in the country’s black communities.
Despite constituting 12% of the country’s population, Black Americans account for 35% of kidney failure cases in the US. Furthermore, though they are more likely to require kidney transplants, African Americans are less likely to get them. Latin American communities likewise suffer from higher rates of kidney disease, and have faced similar difficulties in receiving transplants they need.
The two biggest causes of kidney disease are high blood pressure and diabetes, both of which are prevalent in Black American communities. A system that considers kidneys from black donors to be at greater risk of failing after a transplant than kidneys donated from other ethnic groups further complicates treatment.
In April 2024 reports stated that the “biased” system is changing and making progress on removing the barriers that have prevented thousands of Black Americans from receiving kidney transplants. Laboratories were pushed by the American Society of Nephrology and the National Kidney Foundation to stop taking race into account when calculating the function of kidneys.
The country’s organ transplant network then ordered that new patients on the waiting list for a transplant would go through race-neutral testing at hospitals. Martha Pavlakis, who chaired the network’s kidney committee, said the change raised the question of what would happen regarding those already on the waiting list.
In what Pavlakis refers to as an act of “restorative justice”, hospitals were given a year by the network to assess which patients already on the waiting list would have received a kidney transplant more quickly were it not for the biased testing policy. Waiting times were changed to allow for the relaxing of the network’s policy.
Over 14,300 black patients waiting for kidney transplants had waiting times changed between January 2023 and March 2024. Though the policy change stresses that race should not be a defining factor in tests for those seeking transplants, the Donor Alliance states that transplant matches within the same ethnic groups can result in better compatibility and more successful transplants.
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