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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 17:03:35 GMT 1
journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=525752&fileId=S1745855206003036Can Science Alone Improve the Measurement and Communication of Race and Ethnicity in Genetic Research? Exploring the Strategies Proposed by Nature Genetics Andrew Smart a1c1, Richard Tutton a2, Richard Ashcroft a3, Paul A. Martin a4 and George T.H. Ellison a5 a1 Department of Sociology, Bath Spa University, Newton St Loe, Bath BA2 9BN, UK Email: a.smart@bathspa.ac.uk a2 Institute for the Study of Genetics, Biorisks and Society (IGBiS), University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK a3 Queen Mary, University of London, Barts and the London Medical School, Institute of Health Sciences Education, 38–40 New Road, London E1 2AX, UK a4 Institute for the Study of Genetics, Biorisks and Society (IGBiS), University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK a5 St George’s, University of London, Cranmer Terrace, London SW17 0RE, UK Abstract The long-standing concerns about the measurement and communication of race and ethnicity in genetic research have spilled over into the editorial columns of a growing number of biomedical journals. Nature Genetics has played a prominent role in this debate with a series of editorials published between 2000–2004, culminating in the publication of an open-access Special Issue (Genetics for the human race) in November 2004. The Special Issue brought together contemporary research on the relationship between race, ethnicity and genetic variation, and a range of views on the social and ethical implications of this research. In this article we analyse interviews with each of three the editors in charge of Nature Genetics during this period to show that scientific concerns related to the measurement and communication of race and ethnicity in genetic research had been responsible for making this a ‘special issue’ for the journal. Two broad strategies for tackling these concerns were identified from an analysis of contributions to the Special Issue: continuing to use racial and ethnic categories until such time as these become obsolete; or replacing racial and ethnic categories with alternatives based on socio-cultural and geographical ancestry. We also identified additional suggestions for improving the communication of genetic findings disaggregated by race or ethnicity, which were: developing guidelines for measurement and interpretation; and greater ‘community engagement’. We argue that neither of the broad strategies and neither of the suggestions for improving communication can be wholly effective. We suggest that this is because these proposals do not adequately confront the notion that race and ethnicity are difficult concepts to operationalize or examine in scientific research precisely because they have meanings and uses which exist beyond the domain of scientific practice or control.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 17:07:04 GMT 1
www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n12/abs/ng1204-1243.htmlIn genetic control of disease, does 'race' matter? David B Goldstein1 & Joel N Hirschhorn2 1 David B Goldstein is in the Department of Biology at Galton Labs, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. 2 Joel N. Hirschhorn is in the Divisions of Genetics and Endocrinology at Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA and in the Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. As geneticists begin to identify gene variants associated with common diseases and responses to treatment, it is increasingly important to determine whether these variants have consistent effects across different 'racial' or 'ethnic' groups. Until recently, too little was known about either disease genetics or pharmacogenetics to make a detailed assessment. Now, a new study reviewing 43 disease-associated gene variants suggests that the effects of gene variants may be largely consistent across different 'racial' or 'ethnic' groups.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 17:09:17 GMT 1
www.nature.com/index.html?file=/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1456.htmlAssessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences among 'racial' and 'ethnic' groups Joanna L Mountain1, 2 & Neil Risch2, 3 1 Department of Anthropological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-2117, USA. 2 Department of Genetics, Stanford Medical School, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-5120, USA. 3 Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, California 94611-5714. Correspondence should be addressed to Joanna L Mountain mountain@stanford.edu Descriptions of human genetic variation given thirty years ago have held up well, considering the substantial accrual of DNA sequence data in the interim. Most importantly, estimates of between-group genetic variation have remained relatively low. Despite the low average level of between-group variation, clusters recently inferred from multilocus genetic data coincide closely with groups defined by self-identified race or continental ancestry. This correspondence implies that genetic factors might contribute to unexplained between-group phenotypic variation. Current understanding of the contribution of genes to variation in most complex traits is limited, however. Under these circumstances, assumptions about genetic contributions to group differences are unfounded. In the absence of detailed understanding, 'racial' and 'ethnic' categories will remain useful in biomedical research. Further, we suggest approaches and guidelines for assessing the contribution of genetic factors to between-group phenotypic differences, including studies of candidate genes and analyses of recently admixed populations.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 17:11:53 GMT 1
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 17:14:38 GMT 1
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 17:17:03 GMT 1
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 17:18:48 GMT 1
ds.epi-ucsf.org/ticr/syllabus/courses/23/2012/03/29/Lecture/readings/The Importance of Race %26 Ethnicity in Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice..pdf
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 14, 2015 17:25:30 GMT 1
revalence of Migraine Headache in the United StatesRelation to Age, Income, Race, and Other Sociodemographic Factors Walter F. Stewart, PhD, MPH; Richard B. Lipton, MD; David D. Celentano, ScD; Michael L. Reed, PhD JAMA. 1992;267(1):64-69. doi:10.1001/jama.1992.03480010072027. Text Size: A A A jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=394233Article References ABSTRACT ABSTRACT | REFERENCES Objective. — To describe the magnitude and distribution of the public health problem posed by migraine in the United States by examining migraine prevalence, attack frequency, and attack-related disability by gender, age, race, household income, geographic region, and urban vs rural residence.
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Post by fascinating on Jan 14, 2015 22:50:45 GMT 1
www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n12/abs/ng1204-1243.htmlIn genetic control of disease, does 'race' matter? David B Goldstein1 & Joel N Hirschhorn2 1 David B Goldstein is in the Department of Biology at Galton Labs, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. 2 Joel N. Hirschhorn is in the Divisions of Genetics and Endocrinology at Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA and in the Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. As geneticists begin to identify gene variants associated with common diseases and responses to treatment, it is increasingly important to determine whether these variants have consistent effects across different 'racial' or 'ethnic' groups. Until recently, too little was known about either disease genetics or pharmacogenetics to make a detailed assessment. Now, a new study reviewing 43 disease-associated gene variants suggests that the effects of gene variants may be largely consistent across different 'racial' or 'ethnic' groups. First,note how consistently the authors put "racial" in quotes, which I take to mean so-called racial. What does that last sentence actually mean? I don't have access to the full article. Is it that, regardless of what people (not science) likes to call races or ethnic groups, the effects of genes is the SAME across them all - so effectively we can disregard the notion of race in this context?
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Post by fascinating on Jan 14, 2015 22:52:51 GMT 1
atvb.ahajournals.org/content/20/8/1932.shortAbstract Abstract—Abdominal obesity is associated with numerous metabolic alterations, such as hypertriglyceridemia and low levels of high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. However, compared with abdominally obese white individuals, abdominally obese black individuals have been characterized by higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels, suggesting that the impact of abdominal fat accumulation on the lipoprotein-lipid profile may differ among ethnic groups. Therefore, we have compared the associations between body fatness, visceral adipose tissue (AT) accumulation, and metabolic risk variables in a sample of 247 white men and 240 white women versus a sample of 93 black men and 143 black women. Although no difference in mean total body fatness was found between the 2 race groups, white men had higher levels of visceral AT than did black men (P<0.001). Despite the fact that black women had a greater body fat content than did white women, black women had levels of visceral AT that were similar to those of white women, suggesting a lower susceptibility to visceral obesity in black women. This lower accumulation of visceral AT in blacks was accompanied by significantly reduced apolipoprotein B concentrations and ratios of total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol as well as higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels (P<0.05) compared with those values in whites. Irrespective of sex, higher postheparin plasma hepatic lipase (HL) and lower lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activities were found in whites, resulting in an HL/LPL ratio that was twice as high in whites as in blacks (P<0.005). Although differences in lipoprotein-lipid levels were noted between whites and blacks, results from multiple regression analyses revealed that after control for morphometric and metabolic variables of the study (body fat mass, visceral AT, LPL, HL, and age), ethnicity had, per se, only a minor contribution to the variance in plasma lipoprotein levels. Thus, our results suggest that the higher plasma HDL cholesterol levels and the generally more cardioprotective plasma lipoprotein profile found in abdominally obese black versus white individuals are explained, at least to a certain extent, by a lower visceral AT deposition and a higher plasma LPL activity in black individuals. So?
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Post by fascinating on Jan 14, 2015 22:56:10 GMT 1
ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.068668ABSTRACT Latinos are the largest minority population in the United States. Although usually classified as a single ethnic group by researchers, Latinos are heterogeneous from cultural, socioeconomic, and genetic perspectives. From a cultural and social perspective, Latinos represent a wide variety of national origins and ethnic and cultural groups, with a full spectrum of social class. From a genetic perspective, Latinos are descended from indigenous American, European, and African populations.We review the historical events that led to the formation of contemporary Latino populations and use results from recent genetic and clinical studies to illustrate the unique opportunity Latino groups offer for studying the interaction between racial, genetic, and environmental contributions to disease occurrence and drug response. Read More: ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2005.068668 This is a study by clinicians. It doesn't tell us what race means, scientifically.
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Post by fascinating on Jan 14, 2015 22:59:22 GMT 1
muse.jhu.edu/journals/pbm/summary/v045/45.2braun.htmlAbstract Over the past decade, numerous studies have documented profound racial and ethnic disparities in disease in the United States. This essay examines how popular and scientific concepts of race and ethnicity converge with dominant understandings of genetics to inform the design and interpretation of research, public health policy, and medical practice. Although there is some acknowledgment in the biomedical community that racial and ethnic categories are social and not genetic, ideas about race and ethnicity that circulate in biomedicine are contradictory. Thus, in practice genetic explanations for observed differences are common both in the scientific literature and in popular media accounts of biomedical research. Such explanations naturalize racial and ethnic difference and create a conceptual barrier to developing a research program that explores the complex ways in which social inequality and experiences of racial discrimination interact with human biology to influence patterns of disease. Importantly, genetically based ideas lead to disease prevention policies that are bound to be ineffective. Most relevant part highlighted in blue.
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Post by fascinating on Jan 14, 2015 23:01:42 GMT 1
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Post by fascinating on Jan 14, 2015 23:04:39 GMT 1
sss.sagepub.com/content/38/5/643.shortIntroduction: Race, Genetics, and Disease Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence Joan H. Fujimura1, Troy Duster2 and Ramya Rajagopalan3 + Author Affiliations 1Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 8128 Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, fujimura@ssc.wisc.edu 2New York University, troy.duster@nyu.edu 3Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 8128 Social Science Building, 1180 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA, ramya@ssc.wisc.edu Abstract This special issue of Studies of Science highlights ongoing debates concerning race, genomics, and disease. Some of the papers examine the production of disease etiology research, pharmaceutical drug response, or DNA genealogy tests, while others analyze institutional consequences and challenges arising from contemporary biomedicine, such as medical education and recruiting subjects for clinical research. In this introduction, we outline major issues that provide background and foreground for the specific studies that follow, and end with a brief description of the papers. First, we briefly outline the debates around contemporary genetics research on race, ancestry, population, and disease. Second, we describe genomics and disease research projects on the genetics of populations that provide the ground on which the past debates have played, as well as introduce very recent projects that may change the tenor of future debates. We discuss why some scientists argue that their research does not biologize race, while others argue that their findings do demonstrate racial differences. Finally, we relate these complex genomic sciences and their biopolitical debates to relevant STS themes. Which scientists argue that their findings do demonstrate racial differences?
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Post by fascinating on Jan 14, 2015 23:09:17 GMT 1
books.google.co.uk/books?id=Btl6C29xXm0C&dq=genetics+of+race&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s Race, Ethnicity, and Nation: Perspectives from Kinship and Genetics (Google eBook) Front Cover Peter Wade Berghahn Books, 15 Dec 2007 - Social Science - 210 pages 0 Reviews Race, ethnicity and nation are all intimately linked to family and kinship, yet these links deserve closer attention than they usually get in social science, above all when family and kinship are changing rapidly in the context of genomic and biotechnological revolutions. Drawing on data from assisted reproduction, transnational adoption, mixed race families, Basque identity politics and post-Soviet nation-building, this volume provides new and challenging ways to understand race, ethnicity and nation. This is the blurb about a social science book, which does mention race (as, of course, a social construct). It is not an abstract of a scientific study done by geneticists.
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