In the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a new public interest in health inequities research. With this new focus, there also has come new funding with many researchers and institutions clamoring to receive lucrative funding and recognition in the field, but there are no official guidelines to distinguish a health equity expert. In this episode we sit down with Dr. Elle Lett who coined the term "health equity tourism" to describe when privileged and previously unengaged scholars enter the health equity field without developing the necessary expertise ..read more

Certain medical instruments have built-in methods of correcting for race. They’re based on the premise that Black bodies are inherently different from White bodies. The tool that measures kidney function, for example, underestimates how severe some Black patients’ kidney disease is, and prevents them from getting transplants. Medical students and doctors have been trying to do away with race correction tools once and for all. And they’re starting to see some success. About Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race “Correcting Race” is Episode 9 of Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of R ..read more

Of all wealthy countries, the United States is the most dangerous place to have a baby. Our maternal mortality rate is abysmal, and over the past five years it’s only gotten worse. And there are huge racial disparities: Black women are three times more likely to die than white women. Despite some claims to the contrary, the problem isn’t race, it’s racism. In this episode we trace the origins of this harrowing statistic back to the dawn of American gynecology—a field that was built on the bodies of enslaved women. And we’ll meet eight women who have dedicated their lives to understanding and s ..read more

Certain medical instruments have built-in methods of correcting for race. They’re based on the premise that Black bodies are inherently different from White bodies. The tool that measures kidney function, for example, underestimates how severe some Black patients’ kidney disease is, and prevents them from getting transplants. Medical students and doctors have been trying to do away with race correction tools once and for all. And they’re starting to see some success. About Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race “Correcting Race” is Episode 9 of Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of R ..read more

In 2005 the FDA approved a pill to treat high blood preassure only in African Americans. This so-called miracle drug was named BiDil, and it became the first race-specific drug in the United States. It might sound like a good a good thing, but it had the unintended consequence of perpetuating the myth that race is a biological construct.  Credits Hosts: Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Associate Producer: Padmini Raghunath Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pfeffer “Innate Theme” composed by Jonathan Pfeffer. Additional music ..read more

In 1991, as crews broke ground on a new federal office building in lower Manhattan, they discovered human skeletons. It soon became clear that it was the oldest and largest African cemetery in the country. The federal government was ready to keep building, but people from all over the African diaspora were moved to treat this site with dignity, respect, and scientific excellence. When bioarchaeologist Michael Blakey took over, that's exactly what they got. But it wasn't easy. Credits Host: Alexis Pedrick  Senior Producer: Mariel Carr Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez Associate ..read more

In 2019, Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, a community organizer and journalist, learned that the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology had a collection of skulls that belonged to enslaved people. As Muhammad demanded that the university return these skulls, they discovered that claiming ownership over bodies of marginalized people is not just a relic of the past—it continues to this day. Credits Host: Alexis Pedrick  Reporter and Producer: Mariel Carr Additional production by: Rigoberto Hernandez Edited by: Rigoberto Hernandez and Padmini Ragunath Audio Engineer: Jonathan Pf ..read more

In the 1990s a liberal population geneticist launched the Human Genome Diversity Project. The goal was to sequence the genomes of “isolated” and “disappearing” indigenous groups throughout the world. The project did not go as planned—indigenous groups protested it, and scientists and anthropologists criticized it. This episode examines what went wrong and asks the question: can anti-racist scientists create racist science?  About Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race “The Vampire Project” is Episode 4 of Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race ..read more

In the 1970s Barry Mehler started tracking race scientists and he noticed something funny: they all had the same funding source. One wealthy man was using his incredible resources to prop up any scientist he could find who would validate his white supremacist ideology—and make it seem like it was backed by a legitimate scientific consensus. About Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race “Keepers of the Flame” is Episode 3 of Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race, a podcast and magazine project that explores the historical roots and persistent legacies of racism ..read more

In 1793 a yellow fever epidemic almost destroyed Philadelphia. The young city was saved by two Black preachers, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, who organized the free Black community in providing essential services and nursing the sick and dying. Allen and Jones were assured of two things: that stepping up would help them gain full equality and citizenship, and that they were immune to the disease. Neither promise turned out to be true.  About Innate: How Science Invented the Myth of Race “Calamity in Philadelphia” is Episode 2 of Innate: How Science Invente ..read more