The Business Secretary claimed a BBC article was 'undermining social cohesion in our country'
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Kemi Badenoch has hit out at the BBC for what she claimed to be an "inaccurate" and "alarmist" headline.
The BBC posted an article on X, with the headline: "Black women most likely to die in medieval London plague".
Hitting back, Badenoch said: "This study is unreliable and the headline inaccurate and alarmist.
"The 675 year old remains of 49 people who died of the Black Death were analysed and 9 were found to be 'probably' black.
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"The Black Death killed over half of London. Making it a racism issue is nonsensical."
She added: "Too many organisations (and news outlets) use misleading race statistics to alarm ethnic minorities and whip up tensions around history and racism.
"This undermines social cohesion in our country.
"I've written to the Museum of London expressing my concerns."
The BBC article summarised a study from the Museum of London, claiming that "black women of African descent were more likely to die of the medieval plague in London".
The report said: "There is a significantly higher proportion of people of estimated African affiliation in the plague burials compared to the nonplague burials (18.4 per cent vs. 8.3 per cent).
"For the female-only sample, individuals of estimated African population affinity have a significantly higher estimated hazard of dying of plague compared to those with estimated white European affinity. There are no significant associations for any of the other comparisons."
The article cited data on bone and dental changes of the 145 individuals from East Smithfield Emergency Plague Cemetery, St Mary Graces and St Mary Spital.
It said: "This primary data was then examined by applying a forensic anthropological toolkit to estimate whether the bones were likely to have come from someone with African heritage.
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"It found there were significantly higher proportions of people of colour and those of Black African descent in plague burials compared to non-plague burials."
But, as Badenoch pointed out, only 49 of the 145 individuals died from the plague.
The BBC and the Museum of London have been contacted for comment.
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