A Black Kidney Patient Makes Documentary to Warn Others

September 16, 2014

(Washington Post) – It’s a well-known truth in the public health world: African Americans run an elevated risk of kidney disease. And if they get it, a gene variant common among people of African descent makes the disease more likely to progress to kidney failure. Retired NBC4 videographer Ron Minor knows this as well as anyone: His mother died of renal failure. His son went on dialysis four years ago, at age 38. And next month, Minor will mark five years since his own kidney transplant. Yet when he tells people what he has learned, he says the most common response is “I didn’t know.”