Documentary evidence showing that the State of New York is discriminating against white people in providing access to covid treatments has provoked widespread outrage. Hans Bader has a good rundown, and both Hans and Paul Mirengoff point out that such discrimination by public agencies is illegal.
But it isn’t only happening in New York. A friend who is a doctor received this communication from a local hospital network, indicating that in Minnesota, being “BIPOC” scores extra points in getting access to the most effective anti-covid treatment:
The most effective therapy for the Omicron variant is Sotrovimab, which is in limited supply. We will use Sotrovimab for outpatient treatment and post-exposure prophylaxis for patients with a MASSPB (Monoclonal antibody scoring system, pregnancy and BIPOC, which is validated by MDH) score of 4 and above. [Emphasis added.]
So in order to get access to the best covid treatment, you need a score of four or more. How do you score points? The Minnesota Department of Health explains:
The MASSBP is calculated as follows, on a scale of 0-25: age 65 years and older (2 points), BMI 35 kg/m2 and higher (2), diabetes mellitus (2), chronic kidney disease (3), cardiovascular disease in a patient 55 years and older (2), chronic respiratory disease in a patient 55 years and older (3), hypertension in a patient 55 years and older (1), and immunocompromised status (4), pregnancy (4) or BIPOC status (2).
This shows the same scoring system in grid form:
It takes a score of 4 or more to be somewhere on the list to receive monoclonal antibodies, the best treatment we have for covid, and being “Black, Indigenous or a Person of Color” gets you halfway there, counting as much as being over 65, having diabetes, and so on. Being white gets you nowhere. The Minnesota Department of Health, apparently with a straight face, calls this an “Ethical Framework for Allocation of Monoclonal Antibodies during the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
My friend comments:
Hospital system protocols that use an algorithm to decide who qualifies to obtain the medication we know works best for treatment of COVID 19, monoclonal antibodies, now all include different weighting for patients of different races. While we have no evidence that I am aware of that shows BIPOC do worse than white people when controlled for other confounding factors, the Minnesota Department of Health believes it is more ethical to deny the treatment to white people based on the color of their skin.
That’s not ethical.
It’s not legal, either.
Governmental authorities have grossly misrepresented statistical data to try to show that covid has disproportionately impacted blacks and other minorities, and thus to justify discrimination in violation of the law. I exposed the childishly deceitful manipulation of data undertaken by University of Minnesota researchers and the Minnesota Department of Health, which manipulation was used to justify racial discrimination, in Thinking Minnesota. Nevertheless, the illegal discrimination continues. I think it is time for a lawsuit. Or rather lawsuits, as the same discrimination is going on in any number of states.
UPDATE: Law professor Eugene Volokh dives into the Minnesota Department of Health’s stated rationale for engaging in race discrimination and, in a detailed analysis, concludes that the Department’s discrimination against whites is unconstitutional.
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