In arguing that the supposedly enhanced cortisol resulting from fear of discrimination leads to physiological harm, the New England Journal of Medicine uses a hoax to support an already-flawed argument:

Let us overlook the post hoc, ergo propter hoc nature of this reasoning and accept it almost at face value. Clearly, what the authors are trying to establish are the deleterious physiological effects of fear of racial attack (given that chronically raised cortisol levels are bad for you). But the accusations were entirely false, made up and self-dramatizing or self-promoting on the part of the person who made them. They were wicked inventions, excusable only if a certain class of person (black female) were exempt from normal judgment, which would be a deeply condescending attitude to take toward black females or anyone else.