#A rising ‘Anti-Racist’ menace and other commentary

Medical beat: A Rising ‘Anti-Racist’ Menace

In a guest column at Bari Weiss’ Common Sense site, Katie Herzog highlights “the rapid spread of a deeply illiberal ideology in the country’s most important medical institutions.” Call it “wokeness, social justice, critical race theory, anti-racism,” but some doctors “insist that it is threatening the foundations” of patient care, research and “medicine itself.” Warns one MD, “Whole research areas are off-limits,” and some work published in top journals is “shoddy as hell.” Purge victims include a cardiologist demoted by his university for a paper “analyzing and criticizing diversity initiatives in cardiology” (which the Journal of the American Heart Association then retracted without real explanation) and two editors forced out by the Journal of the American Medical Association over a podcast that questioned “the idea that medicine is systemically racist.”

Pandemic journal: May China Pay for COVID

The world’s preoccupation with flattening the curve and President Donald Trump’s “racist” rhetoric “chilled any drive for accountability in China’s role in originating and not effectively suppressing” COVID, argues Jeremy Hurewitz at USA Today. Meanwhile, China used its “rising global clout” to control the World Health Organization’s investigation of the outbreak. It also arrested “doctors who spoke out” and blocked scientists’ access to key people and sites. Now “we must demand that China fully and transparently account” for COVID’s origins, so the pandemic becomes “a weight around China’s neck,” as it tries to “assert itself as a global behemoth” — reminding the world that “a US system that extols democracy and transparency” is “superior to the authoritarian Chinese model of cover-ups and repression.”

Schools watch: Charter Support Is Growing

“After years in the wilderness” and “waning influence in Albany, charter schools are gaining a foothold in the city again — if the race for mayor is any barometer,” reports Politico’s Madina Touré. “The three leading candidates in the Democratic primary” — Eric Adams, Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia — are all “decidedly supportive of charter schools,” a dramatic shift from “when Mayor Bill de Blasio was elected eight years ago and another sign of the citywide electorate hewing closer to the center.” The head of the Achievement First charter network chalks up the shift to more political activism and polling that shows Democratic voters backing school choice for their kids. “Times,” notes charter champ Jenny Sedlis, “have changed.”

Foreign desk: Biden’s Risky Date With Putin

The upcoming summit between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin “is riskier for Biden than Putin,” warns Kurt Volker at Europe’s Edge, because “any outcome that seems reassuring and benign on the surface actually works in Putin’s favor.” Putin leaving the confab without facing “consequences for his behavior” would “send a signal globally that ­authoritarians can get away with aggressive acts at home and abroad.” So “the best possible outcome is not one of modest agreements” but “a lack of agreements altogether. Success is confrontation.” Ideally, Team Biden would “announce tough, new sanctions against Russia and its enablers in Western Europe in advance,” which “could be lifted at a moment’s notice if Russian behavior actually changes.” Putin must see Biden “is negotiating from a position of strength” — which he certainly isn’t now.

Economics expert: Intellectual Property Matters

Waiving intellectual-property rights for COVID vaccines and treatments, as some countries and even “our own government” demand, would “undermine” the very “economic model of innovation” that led to the speedy development by US and British firms of vaccines with “historically unprecedented effectiveness,” fears Thomas Duesterberg at The Hill. It might also “unravel” the international IP-rights regime, which “incentivizes and rewards” research and long-term capital investment, and then spill over to other high-tech sectors. Yet “there are better ways to achieve the goal of eradicating COVID-19,” and if “Congress truly cares about protecting American innovation, it ought to assert its constitutional authority over international trade to block this danger to domestic high-technology industries.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board