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Inclusion of Racial and Ethnic Minorities in Genetic Research: Advance the Spirit by Changing the Rules?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Sarah Knerr ,
Dawn Wayman  and
Vence L. Bonham
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Extract

As genetic and genomic research has progressed since the sequencing of the human genome, scientists have continued to struggle to understand the role of genetic and socio-cultural factors in racial and ethnic health disparities. Recognition that race and ethnicity correlate imperfectly with differences in allele frequency, environmental exposures, and significant health outcomes has made framing the relationship between genetic variation, race, ethnicity, and disease one of the most heated debates of the genome era. Because racial and ethnic identities reflect a complicated mix of social and genetic factors, critics have argued that use of racial and ethnic categories as analytical variables in biomedical research lacks rigor, leads to potentially dangerous stereotyping in medical practice, and sends harmful messages of innate racial difference to the broader public.

Concerns over the current lack of diversity in human genetic and genomic studies have developed in parallel to discussions of the appropriate use of racial and ethnic categories during the research process.

Type
Independent
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , Fall 2011 , pp. 502 - 512
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2011

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