pulse oximeters are three times as likely to miss dangerously low blood oxygen levels in Black patients as in white ones

A New England Journal of Medicine article found pulse oximeters were three times as likely to miss dangerously low blood oxygen levels in Black patients as in white ones.

The finding exposed one of the most blatant examples of institutional racism in American health care.

State attorneys general and U.S. senators have pressed the FDA to take steps to eliminate pulse oximetry’s racial bias.

In 2005 , a study found that pulse oximeters consistently failed to detect hypoxemia in darkly pigmented patients.

The FDA ’s response was modest. The agency did not define “dark-pigmented” patients.

Some expensive devices don’t work; a few of the $ 35 gadgets are more effective.

Aboelata said a few manufacturers have responded to the Roots Community Health lawsuit by including warnings about their devices’ limitations.

Connecticut enacted a law banning insurers from denying home oxygen or other services based solely on pulse oximetry readings.

But “adapting around the crappy device isn’t the solution,” said Theodore Iwashyna , the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health professor who co-authored the article.