VIDEO: John Oliver Talks Bias in Medicine With Wanda Sykes & Larry David

By: Aug. 19, 2019
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On the most recent episode of "Last Week Tonight", host John Oliver had a conversation with his audience about the biases inherent in medicine.

In 22 minutes, and with the help of Wanda Sykes and Larry David, Oliver examined medical biases based on sex and based on race, speaking frankly about shockingly outdated physician perceptions of black people's pain tolerance and women in general's ability to identify their own pain.

Sykes talks about these issues in her stand up. "Black people, we don't even get our hands on opioids," she said on her Netflix special, Wanda Sykes: Not Normal. "They don't even give them to us. I had a double mastectomy, you know what they sent my black ass home with? Ibu-fing-profen."

The New York Times recently published The 1619 Project, which includes articles about old-time medical biases about black patients that have persisted way longer than the Science has stopped backing them up.

Watch Oliver's latest "Last Week Tonight" below:



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