As a bit of background, the role and structure of DNA was initially delineated by researchers Watson& Crick as all good biology students know. Then, as biochemistry students are well aware, Linus Pauling from the University of California identified the first molecular based disease "Sickle Cell Anemia" (SCA)
Genetic research has come a long way. It has also benefited Forensic science, through the use of DNA, and been instrumental in having inmates released from prison who were falsely accused of heinous crimes. The Innocence Project, a legal advocacy group has been instrumental in this regard. What many don't realize is that just as easily, DNA, can be turned into a high tech tool for racial profiling although on shakier scientific ground. In the wrong hands it can be used to falsely accuse.
Recently we had a case here in Albuquerque where a woman accused a man of being her baby's daddy. He paid thousands in child support only to find out that, according to local news reports, the woman never had his baby. She allegedly conspired with associates to obtain tainted DNA tests and someone else's child to prove she had a child by this man.
In the area of medical research, genetic science is similarly double-edged in the realm of health research. Initially research trials in the US included only male white subjects and now the government has moved to assure all races and genders are included in the research. There were a number of notable Black scientists who were not in agreement. Duana Fullwiley of Harvard, who recently published "The Molecularization of Race" and Otis Brawley formerly with the National Cancer Institute wrote: "the legislation's emphasis on potential racial differences fosters the racism that its creators want to abrogate by establishing government-sponsored research on the basis of the belief that there are significant biological differences among the races".
Paradoxically, as the Human Genome Project discredited the use of race in science, the pharmaceutical industry moved in the opposite direction, according to Fullwiley instead of focusing on the 99.9% overlap in all human genes, the Pharmacogenetics Research Network, a government–funded follow-up to the Human Genome Project honed in on the 0.01 percent difference as a source of the new discoveries and therapies.
Troy Duster, a UC medical sociologist, who published a book on Eugenics several years ago, allows there may be faulty reasoning behind the above approach. Also he cited epidemiologist Richard S. Cooper who pointed out that "Germany has the highest rates of hypertension worldwide, and Nigeria has the lowest rate." Race and genetics doesn't appear to be the issue in this analogy.
Comments are Appreciated please send to:
tlj135@netscape.net
Page: 1 2 3