This has been a week of bitter truths

Our mission at Medical News Today is to make the world stronger and healthier. We are failing.

⁠We pride ourselves on the scientific objectivity of our editorial approach. We are misguided.

Science is objective. Institutionalized racism is not. Healthcare in the U.S. is institutionally racist.

⁠To not have a defined and proactive position on this issue is to be silent. We have been silent.

Silence is not an option.

Racism is a public health emergency in America right now. But COVID-19 has served only to further expose the profound racial inequalities in U.S. healthcare that have always been there.

⁠Historically, MNT have written about these issues sporadically and as dispassionate observers. No longer.

⁠We have already begun a process of rebuilding our editorial systems to ensure we play an active and consistent role in confronting racial inequality in healthcare. ⁠That same rebuilding process will ensure greater representation of, and relevance for, black people, and all people of color, in the content we create.

⁠Going forward, you will see this on MNT in the news stories we cover, in the opinion pieces we commission, in the first-person perspectives we bring to light, and in the journalists and experts we have writing for us.

⁠We have worked hard to create a platform that reaches millions of people every month across the U.S. and wider world.

We are now mobilizing this reach to advocate for the kind of systemic change to our health systems that will ensure the world becomes a stronger, healthier place — not just for some, but for all.

In solidarity,

Robin Hough ⁠Editor-in-Chief, Medical News Today