when used to define populations for genetic research, race has the potential to confuse by mistakenly implying biological explanations for socially and historically constructed health disparities.

Posted in Excerpts/Quotes on 2013-09-13 05:00Z by Steven

In the United States, much of this debate has centered on the biological meaning of race, an historically contentious concept that has polarized what might otherwise be a more nuanced consideration of the distribution and structure of genetic differences among humans. This polarization is not surprising in light of the importance that the public attaches to race. As a prominent way of defining population membership over the past 500 years, race has been used to advantage some groups over others. For that reason, race should not, and cannot, be avoided in considerations of issues such as access to care, exposure to environmental hazards and preferences regarding clinical interventions. However, when used to define populations for genetic research, race has the potential to confuse by mistakenly implying biological explanations for socially and historically constructed health disparities.

Morris W. Forster and Richard R. Sharp, “Beyond race: towards a whole-genome perspective on human populations and genetic variation,” Nature Reviews Genetics (Volume 5, Issue 10, October 2004), 790.

Tags: , , , ,

Beyond race: towards a whole-genome perspective on human populations and genetic variation

Posted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive on 2013-09-13 03:10Z by Steven

Beyond race: towards a whole-genome perspective on human populations and genetic variation

Nature Reviews Genetics
Volume 5, Issue 10 (October 2004)
pages 790-796
DOI: 10.1038/nrg1452

Morris W. Foster, Professor of Anthropology
University of Oklahoma

Richard R. Sharp, Director of Bioethics Research
Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio

The renewed emphasis on population-specific genetic variation, exemplified most prominently by the International HapMap Project, is complicated by a longstanding, uncritical reliance on existing population categories in genetic research. Race and other pre-existing population definitions (ethnicity, religion, language, nationality, culture and so on) tend to be contentious concepts that have polarized discussions about the ethics and science of research into population-specific human genetic variation. By contrast, a broader consideration of the multiple historical sources of genetic variation provides a whole-genome perspective on the ways in which existing population definitions do, and do not, account for how genetic variation is distributed among individuals. Although genetics will continue to rely on analytical tools that make use of particular population histories, it is important to interpret findings in a broader genomic context.

Read the entire article here.

Tags: , , , , ,