A Catholic hospital chain in the Midwest has ended the rules that granted black people preferential treatment for life-saving COVID treatment.
SSM Health, based in St Louis, Missouri, runs 23 hospitals across Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin.
On Friday, attorneys for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty wrote to the hospital, asking that they end the ranking system used to determine which patients get priority for monoclonal antibodies - a popular method for reducing the risk of severe COVID symptoms.
The letter cited a December 31 email to physicians by SSM Health, which referenced a risk scoring calculator in which non-white patients received a seven-point head start out of 20 total, when judging whether to administer the antibodies.
'For example, a 50-year-old white female (15 points) suffering from obesity (1 point), asthma (1 point), and hypertension (1 point) would not be eligible for mAbs because she does not receive the 20-point minimum score under the calculator,' the letter stated.
'On the other hand, an otherwise healthy 50-year-old African-American female (22 points), without any of these health risks, would be eligible.'
Rick Esenberg (left), an attorney for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, wrote a letter on Friday to Laura Kaiser (right), the CEO of SSM Health, about their policy for determining COVID treatment
The attorneys, led by Rick Esenberg, wrote that the grading system was immoral and illegal.
'The approach taken by your calculator is not only profoundly unethical and immoral, it is illegal,' they argued.
'Federal law forbids race discrimination.'
SSM Health's CEO, Laura Kaiser, said in response that the calculator cited by the attorneys was outdated and no longer in use.
'While early versions of risk calculators across the nation appropriately included race and gender criteria based on initial outcomes, SSM Health has continued to evaluate and update our protocols weekly to reflect the most up-to-date clinical evidence available,' the company said in a statement.
'As a result, race and gender criteria are no longer utilized.
'The internal memo cited by WILL inadvertently referenced an expired calculator.'
The hospital chain had said previously that the 'ethical justification' for the race-based policy was that 'COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on low income communities and certain racial/ethnic minorities in the United States.'
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state that racial and ethnic minority groups have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
They say the reasons for the disparity are complex.
'Some of the many inequities in social determinants of health that may increase risk of severe illness (such as hospitalization, intubation, and death) from COVID-19 include access to quality healthcare, general health status, education, economic stability, and many other factors that affect health risks and outcomes,' they state.
'Because of these and other inequities, people from some racial and ethnic minority groups are less likely to be vaccinated against COVID-19 than non-Hispanic White people.
'COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of COVID-19 and its potentially severe complications.
'Discrimination, which includes racism, shapes social and economic factors that put people at increased risk of severe COVID-19 illness.
'Unfortunately, discrimination exists in systems meant to protect well-being and health.
'For example, discrimination within the healthcare system may deter people from seeking or receiving timely testing, vaccination, and treatment for health concerns, including COVID-19.'
Dan Lennington, an attorney with WILL, said he was please SMM Health had dropped the criteria, but race should never have been a factor in prioritizing treatment.
'We're encouraged that SSM Health has dropped the racial classifications from their risk-scoring calculator,' Lennington said.
'But if they updated this calculator before today, we have yet to see any communication to Wisconsin physicians on the matter.
'We still profoundly disagree with SSM's position that race is an 'appropriate' consideration when treating patients for COVID.'
The SSM case came after the health departments in Utah and Minnesota were told they could face potential discrimination lawsuits after they issued guidance using race as a factor in prioritizing COVID-19 treatment.
The Utah and Minnesota Departments of Health both published guidance notifications that stated race and ethnicity could be considered when determining eligibility for COVID Monoclonal antibodies treatment due to the virus' greater impact in communities of color.
Utah's policy also included a COVID-19 Risk Score card for medical professionals to numerically weigh the risks through several medical factors, with 'non-white race or Hispanic/Latinx ethnicity' scoring two
