Genetic Research on average is Racist Too

[rapbeats]

https://gizmodo.com/genetics-research-is-failing-most-of-the-worlds-populat-1824032089

The epidemic seemed to be hitting African Americans and Latinos especially hard. And, at the time, research suggested that asthma not only occurred at a higher rate within these populations, but they also seemed to get sicker.

“For reasons not entirely clear, the asthma burden is falling heaviest on minorities, especially those living in urban poverty,” the Boston Globewrote in a major 1999 story.

Burchard, though, had a clue about what might be happening, and it wasn’t just that African Americans and Latinos lived in places with poorer air quality or lacked access to good health care. Part of the disparity, he thought, was genetic. In 1999, he co-authored a paper that revealed a variant in the gene IL-4 seemed to be associated with asthma severity and was 40 percent more common among African Americans. A Latino himself, he also knew that many Latinos have African ancestry.

“Every variant linked to a trait is likely to be ancestry-specific,” Eric Topol, a geneticist at Scripps Research Institute, told Gizmodo. “There aren’t that many things in the genome that are truly cosmopolitan.”

Sequencing the human genome has shown us that we are mostly all made up of the same stuff, but it’s the tiny variations in our coding that account for huge variations among people. In his most recent study, published earlier this month, Burchard’s team at UCSF sequenced the entire genomes of 1,441 African American and Latino children with asthma and found a genetic variant that may be responsible for why the most popular asthma medication on the market, albuterol, often does not work for black and Latino children. Knowing whether someone has that genetic variant could determine how well they respond to a drug, which could in turn mean life or death.

The promise of personalized medicine is to exploit the variations in our genome, tailoring treatments and assessing risk of disease based on specific genes. But modern science has so far mostly ignored that those variations sometimes fall along ancestral lines.

Topol put it bluntly: “Your chances of there being existing genetic research relevant to you and your health are better if you are of European ancestry.”

One 2016 analysis found that 81 percent of participants in genome-wide association studies were of European descent. That number is grave when you consider the findings of the few scientists like Burchard who are studying the other 20 percent. The truth is that if you are black, Latino, or a member of an indigenous population, we just don’t know all that much about your specific genes. It is discrimination embedded deep in the annals of medicine, a slight resurfaced with every journal article that includes the disclaimer that the study population was of “mostly European descent.”

 

[Koichos]

The article does not merit accusations of racism. Group A is not obligated to probe the genome of group B, given the former's own genetic conundrums.

Just as I would not expect an outgroup to conduct linkage analyses in search of autosomal disorders that concern the peoplehood of which I am a part.

 

[rapbeats]

The article does not merit accusations of racism. Group A is not obligated to probe the genome of group B, given the former's own genetic conundrums.

Just as I would not expect an outgroup to conduct linkage analyses in search of autosomal disorders that concern the peoplehood of which I am a part.

wrong.

you do research for the greater good of all humanity especially those living in your country( you know your fellow citizens.)

or do you think its ok to keep prescribing drugs that wont do the trick to certain groups because you were to racist to do the research on people of color?

 

[Koichos]

wrong.

you do research for the greater good of all humanity especially those living in your country( you know your fellow citizens.)

or do you think its ok to keep prescribing drugs that wont do the trick to certain groups because you were to racist to do the research on people of color?

Genetic research is being carried out on all peoples. The drawback arises when one group is expected to administer genic analyses on the other at a comparable rate to which they do their own. Ascribing these group disparities in biological lab work to racism, insinuates (albeit inadvertently) that Black and Latino geneticists are less competent than their counterparts and thus must rely on them for scientific breakthroughs -- that when a commensurate ratio is not met, the explanation ought to default to out-group discrimination.

 

[rapbeats]

Genetic research is being carried out on all peoples. The drawback arises when one group is expected to administer genic analyses on the other at a comparable rate to which they do their own. Ascribing these group disparities in biological fieldwork to racism, insinuates that Black and Latino geneticists are less competent than their counterparts and thus must rely on them for scientific breakthroughs -- that when a commensurate ratio is not met, the explanation ought to default to out-group discrimination.

wrong again. non of that is insinuated by any logical thought. it says two things. their arent but X amt of geneticists that are black and latino. lets not even go there why that is. it starts with cism too. Dont even start talking about we dont choose those fields. you can't choose something you know nothing about because you are rarely if ever exposed to it in your terrible schools from pre k-12grade. and for those who graduate in the fields, its not like all are able to perform the proper research without the funding. for all we know, they have half or more people of color geneticists working on non people of color research. you know thats true without even checking because you know who has most of the funding. a vicious cycle.

 

[Koichos]

wrong again. non of that is insinuated by any logical thought. it says two things. their arent but X amt of geneticists that are black and latino. lets not even go there why that is. it starts with cism too. Dont even start talking about we dont choose those fields. you can't choose something you know nothing about because you are rarely if ever exposed to it in your terrible schools from pre k-12grade. and for those who graduate in the fields, its not like all are able to perform the proper research without the funding. for all we know, they have half or more people of color geneticists working on non people of color research. you know thats true without even checking because you know who has most of the funding. a vicious cycle.

Are you able to provide sources that support your claim of underrepresentation regarding Black and Latino geneticists, or is this merely speculation?

 

[Reality]

Are you able to provide a source that supports the underrepresentation of Black and Latino geneticists, or is this merely speculation?

@BmoreGorilla another one