1\\ An urban legend that refuses to die is the idea that "BIPOC patients are more likely to die in childbirth" and that this must reflect systemic racism

This idea is taken so seriously that it's now the subject of proposed legislation: https://twitter.com/RepPressley/status/1390392689728892932

2\\ Unsurprisingly, the CDC is in on the grift

They are spending $45M to investigate the supposed problem

They've also hitched their wagon to the eternally unproven, eternally un-disprovable "Implicit Bias" theory of structural racism

No doubt more speaking tours for Kendi!

3\\ So how bad is the problem?

CDC's landing page for the topic is curiously fixated on one disparity: 4-5x worse for blacks than for whites

Obviously, the reader is invited to believe that these must be the extremes of the spectrum

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2019/p0905-racial-ethnic-disparities-pregnancy-deaths.html

4\\ Let's click through to the actual CDC data

Again, the only graphic on the page has whites at one end and blacks at the other

Again, "implicit racial bias" and "structural racism" are hypothesized

Gosh, this looks bad! https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6835a3.htm?s_cid=mm6835a3_w

5\\ So let's click (yet again) on a link to more granular data

What's this?!

Hispanic mothers have better outcomes than whites?

Asian mothers are about the same as whites?

How can "structural racism" explain these facts?

6\\ Of course, structural racism *can't* explain those facts. But an even better question is: why is the CDC playing the race baiting game?

Why hide data? Why manipulate data?

Veterans of the COVID-19 info wars will perhaps not be surprised by this bad behavior

7\\ As ever, know that "BIPOC" is seldom a term used in good faith

The differences *between* BIPOC groups (e.g. between blacks and Asians) are often larger than the differences between whites and *any* group

Race baiting is dumb. We should stop being polite to those who do it

8\\ If "implicit bias" isn't to blame for racial differences in perinatal complications, what is?

It occurred to me that there are two topics our society is deathly afraid of discussing: race and obesity

It wouldn't surprise me if the answer lies at their intersection. Let's see

9\\ Sure enough, obesity and perinatal complications are strongly linked, and this link is strongest among the morbidly obese (BMI > 40)

10\\ But do races differ in propensity for morbid obesity?

Yup. Massively.

And the differences almost perfectly match the differences in maternal deaths in childbirth: blacks high, hispanics low, whites intermediate

(CDC prefers the euphemism "severe" over "morbid")

11\\ Even the Asian anomaly (lowest in morbid obesity, second highest in maternal mortality) may have a solution:

The NHANES data the CDC uses for obesity appears to distinguish between Asians (skinny) and Pacific Islanders (fat), but the maternal data combines the two

12\\ With perinatal complications as with COVID-19, we see the CDC subordinating science to politics: they would rather conjure up imaginary "systemic racism" than contradict the faddish notion that "big is beautiful"

Well, big also kills.