Why Your Race Matters to Your Health
Reader Comments
Nice site
Nice article
race does not exist
Race is a SOCIAL construct and it exists in only when people perpetuate the myth. Most health outcomes can be contributed to environmental factors. Many diseases that are typical of certain ethnicities are due to the environment and geography of their ancestors, not their skin color. Many researchers use race to explain health disparities but fail to include more important factors such as SES.
my opinions
I agree with the phrase "race is a social construct" simply because there are no clear distinctive lines between who qualifies as being a part of a certain race and where you draw the line. This doesn't mean there aren't differences between various populations however. For example a swede and a frenchman would have way more in common genetically than a swede and a nigerian. Its hard for me to explain but to summarize race is a social construct and a reality at the same time.
Race mixing is stable for the first generation because the offspring has hybrid vigor. However things deteriorate in the 4th generation and beyond. It's a crime against nature to mix different races unless, unless it's Japanese and European. I am afraid to eat wheaties because I might look like Tiger Woods.
response to EK
Actually I submitted my comment before I'd even noticed yours - so I was commented on the original article, not your comment. But, since you bring it up, race is a biological reality and a useful concept. Some brilliant scientists have acknowledged this fact (Phillipe Rushton and Armand Leroi come to mind) and many more would openly state this if not for the atmosphere of fear and intimidation surrounding this topic. Professor James Watson recanted from his slip of the tongue recently - much in the same way Galeleo recanted from his under duress. Some things haven't changed much. Here I shall quote Francis Fukuyama (not a race-realist himself) in "Our posthuman future":
"The association of psychometry with politically unpalatable views on race and eugenics may be enough to discredit the entire field for some, but what it in fact shows is that there is no necessary correlation between politically incorrect findings and bad science. Attacking the methodological credentials of people whose views one doesn't like and dismissing their work as "pseudoscience" is a convenient shortcut around arguing over substance."
I realize that this is not the proper forum for such a debate, but it is high time we leave the dark ages and return to real science which is no less than seeking the truth no matter where it leads us.
EK
*Apologies to Ms. Kotz if this is a thread-hijack*
Rueben Heiman and A realist,
You are welcome to respond directly to the examples I have given demonstrating Race is indeed an entirely social category, as opposed to Ethnicity or Ancestral Group, which does have a biological and genetic basis. Instead, you've offered the (vague and unscientific) proverbial "fallback" argument--that "liberal scientists just need to stop being so politically correct!"
In my work, I care only about what is scientifically correct and medically and socially useful.
Race, of course, *can* serve a purpose in public health but only when it is a proxy for other factors, including Ethnicity, poverty level, etc. Case in point: for years, the majority of studies on African-Americans sampled only the native-born, non-immigrant "Black" population--this was, by default, a sample of people with ancestors hailing in part from West or Central Africa, Europe, and the Americas (most "Black" Americans, like Europeans, have mixed ancestry). So, these studies purported to be studying "the Black Race" when in fact, they were studying only a limited collection of certain West/Central African ethnic groups (and those mixed with other ethnicities, to boot). Likewise, the Black Race in American epidemiology is often a proxy for lower-income
Until you can offer any cogent reasons why blanket Race--not Ethnicity- is in and of itself a useful category for medical or biological analysis, we researchers will continue to improve our methodology by discarding Race and construing Ethnicity narrowly.
My question to you as well is:
Why are you afraid of precision?
Not from the land of make beleive
Multiculturalists always say race is a social construct . Doesn't this prove race
isn't a social construct ? But something very real and valid.
race and medicine
In light of what we already know about racial differences when it comes to medicine, it would be both foolish and naive to assume that those racial differences stop where our knowledge stops. Such an attitude would also be arrogant. Nature is not politically correct and, if we know what's good for us, we should maintain open minds in such matters.
Death rates from cancer
"African-American women have a somewhat lower incidence of breast cancer compared with white women, though they still have higher death rates due to later diagnoses and less access to state-of-the-art treatments"
There may be another reason for the disparity in death rates. When people are undergoing cancer treatments it damages their immune system during those treatments.
This can result in a lower survival rate for black women because they have higher rates of neutropenia.
Duffy (Fy), DARC, and neutropenia among women from the United States, Europe and the Caribbean.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18710383
