What is Race, Anyway?

            I was a bit shocked by Duana Fullwiley’s article “The Molecurization of Race: Institutionalizing Human Difference in Pharmacogenetics Practice”. I thought science had moved past the desire to find some biological basis to the social categories we call “race” and had deemed foundations such as the Pioneer Fund to be supporting nothing more than racism in the name of science. This article has proven to me that the quest continues on, just with different aims.

            In my opinion, the most pertinent objection raised by Fullwiley to the work done to identify SNPs in genes that are specific to one race, was that even the researchers themselves have no clear definition of racial categories. Have racial categories ever been clearly defined by science? If they have not, why has no one stopped to consider the fact that this lack of clear definitions could be the reason for the inconsistencies in scientific research? It is almost absurd to me that the scientists hypothesized that a lack of racial purity in the samples was the cause of discrepancies despite having no standards to determine said purity.

Without a gene or set of genes specifically causing someone to belong a particular race it seems unlikely that science could ever prove anything more than a correlation between our constructed social categories of race and actual biological phenomena. People pertaining to a particular racial or ethnic category, in general, share a set of cultural values that may shape environmental factors critical in gene expression during early development. Common geographical origin and mate selection within racial groups may also shape SNP frequency at several loci. However, these frequencies will be inconsistent, especially if comparing groups that have frequently intermixed in the United States over several generations with those that have a relatively recent ancestor originating from another country.

Nevertheless, it is undeniable that there are enormous health disparities within the United States that are divided along racial lines. However, the minority groups most negatively affected by health disparities, African Americans, Latinos, and American Indians, belong to lower socioeconomic statuses as a whole. Projects aimed at finding genes specific to these races to create “custom pharmaceuticals” divert attention away from the public health and economic measures that could be more effective on a larger scale and more economically feasibly.