The medical watchdog group Do No Harm published a report this week, disputing claims made in a widely-cited study conducted by economists Michael Frakes and Jonathan Gruber that suggests increasing the share of Black physicians in military medical facilities leads to better outcomes for Black patients.
That report argues that the Frakes-Gruber study, despite failing to substantiate its central claim, is used to justify the implementation of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) policies in healthcare.
"The claim that patients have better outcomes when they are treated by a doctor of the same race is the key to efforts to maintain racial preferences in medical education and hiring.
— Do No Harm (@donoharm) January 27, 2026
However, the evidence does not support the alleged benefits of 'racial concordance...'"
Our… pic.twitter.com/rN9Q8LoSqR
Do No Harm released a 16-page report on the Frakes-Gruber study, noting "the evidence does not support the alleged benefits of 'racial concordance,' as it is called in the research literature," and adding that the study is "self-consciously framedas providing evidence that could influence future Supreme Court decisions on racial preferences in medicine."
The study, Do No Harm, says, "does not examine the effect of patients actually being treated by a black doctor," but rather "only considers health outcomes for black and non-black patients as a result of being on a base whose medical facility has a higher or lower percentage of black physicians."
In other words, the study buries the finding that black patients actually do best when treated by non-black doctors in facilities that happen to have more black doctors, which undermines the claim that black patients need to be served by black doctors. On top of that, the study relies on debunked research but also fails to cite systematic reviews that already found no evidence that racial concordance benefits patients.
If the name Jonathan Gruber doesn't sound familiar to you, it should. He was one of the architects of Obamacare, who later revealed that the legislation was “written in a tortured way” to ensure “a lack of transparency.” Gruber said this was intentional so Democrats could take advantage of the “stupidity of the American voter.”
“We cannot allow politically motivated activists to push debunked racial theories that have no positive impact on patient care,” said Jay Greene, Director of Research for Do No Harm. “Studies like this are designed to codify DEI doctrine to pave the way for re-establishing affirmative action and enshrining race-based hiring. The report ignores the very question it purports to answer: whether black patients actually fare better with black doctors. Our report systematically exposes the study’s shoddy methodology and baseless conclusions. Americans of all races and backgrounds deserve high-quality medical research, not political ideology disguised as science."
Ultimately, Do No Harm raises serious questions about how weak and misleading research like that in the Frakes-Gruber study is being leveraged to reshape medical education, hiring practices, and healthcare more broadly. If studies that fail to support their core claims are still used to justify DEI policies, the debate moves beyond health outcomes into ideology, with real consequences for patients who deserve care guided by evidence, not politics.