Reuters Unnecessarily Hypes Racial Gap in Medical Care

The headline (via MSNBC) is ominous: Racial gaps may exist in kidney cancer care -- 5-year survival rates have increased for whites, but not blacks, study finds. But beginning with the second paragraph, we're provided with a big "nevermind":

There are disparities in the treatment and outcome between older black and white patients who have renal cell cancer, with blacks having significantly lower survival rates, according to a new study.

However, the lower rates of nephrectomy (surgical removal of the kidney) and the higher rates of comorbid illnesses in black patients largely explain the survival difference, the study found.

In addition, the study authors discovered that blacks "were much more likely than whites to have other illnesses" in conjunction with kidney cancer. And, the authors concede, these additional illnesses -- when taken into account -- eliminated the post-treatment survival disparity between whites and blacks.

So, the fearful headline isn't so fearful when one bothers to read the article. But if you're just scanning headlines to see what is going on in the news, what impression is one likely to have when reading this particular headline? That the medical community is clandestinely racist when treating kidney cancer, perhaps?