Cognitive Bias in Forensic Pathology Decisions was published today by Journal of Forensic Sciences

From the abstract “We examined all death certificates issued during a 10-year period in the State of Nevada in the United States for children under the age of six.” /2

We also conducted an experiment with 133 forensic pathologists in which we tested whether knowledge of irrelevant non-medical information that should have no bearing on fo- rensic pathologists’ decisions influenced their manner of death determinations. /3

The dataset of death certificates indicated that forensic pathologists were more likely to rule "homicide" rather than "accident" for deaths of Black children relative to White children. /4

“Participants read a vignette describing a not straightforward or simple case in which a 3.5-year-old child was presented to an ED with diminished vital signs and who died shortly after arrival. /5

In response to @nytdavidbrooks
A thread. 👇🏻
You can’t argue studies & reports with fear. Minority communities have been disproportionately affected by their families dying. The unions are representing the teachers who are also POC, at risk & don’t want to die.

I see both sides of this issue and it’s only a problem because of a lack of a Federal response and Federal leadership. If the US had a functional @CDC last year and had set out guidelines for school reopening we wouldn’t be here.

I quit my job because the protocols I wrote weren’t being followed so I don’t blame unions one bit for advocating for the health & safety of their workers.

This biased & inflammatory OpEd does not give any credence to substantiated concerns and fears, especially of those teachers who are unvaccinated, at high risk, and being forced to go teach in unventilated classrooms without N95 respirators or support...

to manage both on line & in person education. I can tell you that I would not be sending my own kid to school under these circumstances knowing the buildings and ventilation problems at their public high school I the US.