It's not race, it's social class . . .

That accounts for different outcomes in prostate cancer among American men. So says a report in the journal Cancer.

Important because medical statistics (including the different outcomes for prostate cancer in whites and blacks) are often cited in support of the dubious notion that ``race is real!''

Race, in the US, is indeed real, because so much of our society has been organized by racial beliefs. Race is not, though, a simple biological fact. For that reason, race-based medical categories need to be examined closely, and alternative classifications considered. Which is what this study did.