The New York Times had a story on Friday criticizing the National Cancer Institute for its new decision tool on colon and rectal cancers. The problem, the reporter says, is that the tool - an interactive questionaire that creates a risk estimate for developing colon cancer - only works for white people. African-Americans or Hispanics who try the tool get a message that says: “At this time the risk calculations and results provided by this tool are only accurate for non-Hispanic white men and women ages 50 to 85.” It's an odd story for a couple reasons. First, the reporter seems to have created the controversy on her own - she quotes only one critic of the tool, and that critic is described as reacting negatively "after being referred to the site by a reporter." The same reporter, I assume, who's writing the story. Hmm.
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