The Nexus of Science and Racism

Introduction

The issues related with race in the form of prejudice and discrimination arising from strict differential ideologies go back to the late Middle Ages. There is a relation between modernisation and legalised racism where bureaucracy promotes unequal treatment based on race. In modern times, the issue has gone beyond mere legalised racism, but also scientific racism where science is used to justify racism based on the notion of deficiency associated with certain race. This view is supported by William H. Tucker, Professor of Psychology at Rutgers University-Camden. He cited George M. Fredrickson, author of Racism: A Short History, who stated that groups that are systematically denied equal treatment have "some extraordinary deficiency that makes them less than fully human" to highlight the use of science as a way to justify such systematic discrimination. Tucker claims that science has become the preferred method to justify discriminatory policies. This essay will explore this aspect to determine the extent of its truth and the manner in which it has been carried out.

Science and race

There is a debate around the issue related to race, genomics and medicine. One group argues that genetics research covering race, population, ancestry and disease do not biologise race. An opposite group argues that findings of such research demonstrate racial differences. Genomics acknowledges that race is a result of social and biological influences. It puts forth biological claims of its ability to provide race-based medicine and treatment. For instance, there is a claim in the form of race-specific therapy, where random trials are interpreted to demonstrate that a combination of vasodilators has more effectiveness in treating heart failures in black persons that in white persons. There is also a claim that the use of angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors is little effective in black persons. This may be true to the selected participants in the study or may present a selective result. It cannot be a generalised finding. The attempt to produce a generalised genomic racial segregation is met with by other research that negate such attempts. For instance, analysis of the data related to the above mention ACE-inhibitor trial established that the original result was only unique to the chosen end point, and that the drug had equal preventive efficacy in both blacks and whites. On a similar line, there is no interaction with race that could be observed in regard to the ACE inhibitors vis-à-vis preventing heart failure while treating Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment.

1. George M. Fredrickson, Racism: A Short History (Princeton University Press 2015) 100.
2. William H. Tucker, ‘The Ideology of Racism: Misusing Science to Justify Racial Discrimination’ (2017) UN Chronicle: The Magazine of the United Nations, XLIV (3). accessed on 14 July 2021 .
3. Ibid.
4. Joan H. Fujimura, Troy Duster, and Ramya Rajagopalan, ‘Introduction: Race, Genetics, and Disease: Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence’, (2008) 38(5) Social Studies of Science 643–56.
5. Joseph A. Franciosa, et al., ‘African-American heart failure trial (A-HeFT): rationale, design, and methodology’ (2002) 8(3) Journal of cardiac failure 128-135.
6. Peter Carson, et al., ‘Racial differences in response to therapy for heart failure: analysis of the vasodilator-heart failure trials’ (1999) 5(3) Journal of cardiac failure 178-187.

In regard to race-specific treatment or medicine, it is argued to be exploitive of race identity. This was found with the approval of the US Food and Drug Administration of the heart failure drug BiDil in 2005. BiDil is the first drug approved to treat heart failure in “self-identified black patients”. This approval is subject to arguments that a pharmaceutical company could exploit race by capitalising on racial identity of minority. Such approval leverages the disproportionate risk of adverse health outcomes into a cheaper, efficient way to gain the approval. Debates around BiDil have been focussed on no relation between pharmacogenomic and race-based medicines. Such genomic racial segregation is to promote a drug for a specific race. This is based on the race-specific therapy that presumes that the frequencies of genetic variants that influence drug efficacies substantially differ across races. Such kind of theories could distract physicians from the therapies that have unequivocal evidence of benefit. The evidence is difficult to demonstrate precise racial categories or genetic clusters in clinical use of making choices of drugs.

1. Exner DV, Dries DL, Domanski MJ, and Cohn JN, ‘Lesser response to angiotensin-converting–enzyme inhibitor therapy in black as compared with white patients with left ventricular dysfunction’ (2001) 344 N Engl J
2. Jennifer S. Li, et al, ‘Racial Difference in Blood Pressure Response to Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors in Children: A Meta-Analysis’ (2008) 84(3) Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 315-319; Daniel L. Dries, et al., ‘Efficacy of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition in reducing progression from asymptomatic left ventricular dysfunction to symptomatic heart failure in black and white patients’ (2002) 40(2) Journal of the American College of Cardiology 311-317.
3. The ALLHAT Officers and Coordinators for the ALLHAT Collaborative Research Group, ‘Major outcomes in high-risk hypertensive patients randomized to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or calcium channel blocker vs diuretic: the Antihypertensive and LipidLowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT)’ (2002) 288 JAMA 2981-97.
4. Jonathan Kahn, ‘Exploiting race in drug development: BiDil's interim model of pharmacogenomics’ (2008) 38(5) Social Studies of Science 737-758.
5. Ibid

The debate to link race and science started in the 19th century where human race became the subject of scientific investigation to show that race forms a graded series, and that racial science could explain the human differences. Race is used by certain scientist to demonstrate an underlying essence or type. This purpose was to present a ‘mental abstraction an independent reality’; however, the notion of racial type is a social construct unlike what those scientist that treated it as being a natural construct. The theories linking race and science declined due to absence of ‘epistemological foundation for racial classification’. This is aligned with arguments mentioned above showing no linkage between race and science. The absence could also be elaborated with the Genetic Ancestry Testing, which allegedly helps people reconstruct their family histories and locate geographic origins of their ancestors. The problem found with this is that it cannot identify all the groups and locations where a test-taker’s haplotype or autosomal markers. The testing cannot capture the full range of human genetic diversity in a particular region or population. Wrong assumptions are, thus made when a haplotype commonly found in a particular population is assumed to be diagnostic of that population.

Wrong assumptions are not limited to the scientists that conducts such tests. They are also found in the public in the form of beliefs that they have on report consisting of study of specific racial differences in genetic bases of disease. It is found that increase in genetic research impacted the public conceptions of race. Reports of specific racial differences in genetic bases of disease are presented as objective facts increased the public belief in more pervasive racial differences. Such reports, however, do not present their social implications. The increased in public belief was found between the period 1985 and 2008 when news articles regarding racial differences in genetic bases of disease were published. However, such increase was less likely associated with articles on non–health-related articles regarding race and genetics discussing social implications.

1. Richard S. Cooper, Jay S. Kaufman, and Ryk Ward, ‘Race and genomics’ (2003) 348(12) The New England journal of medicine 1166.
2. Nancy Leys Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science (Archon Books 1982) ix, 2.
3. Ibid, xviii.
4. Jenny Reardon, Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics (Princeton University Press 2009) 21.
5. Elazar Barkan, The retreat of scientific racism: Changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars (Cambridge University Press 1992) 3-4.
6. Deborah A. Bolnick, et al., ‘The science and business of genetic ancestry testing’ (2007) 318 (5849) Science399-400.

The continued attempts of linking race and science poses the question of whether or race still matters in scientific research. In other perspective, the question could be why racial exploitation still takes place, as seen earlier in the form of medicine or treatment specific to a race or attempts to show one race has that essence that proves its inferiority to another. Racial distinction exists where races are differentiated based on superficial reasons and is readily recognisable. One of such superficial reasons is that of the global standardisation projects comprising the common practice of ‘race correction’, which is also termed ‘ethnic adjustment’. The use of spirometer is one aspect of such project for diagnosis and management of respiratory diseases. Most of the commercially available spirometers ‘correct’ or ‘adjust’ for race employing a scaling factor for people who are not ‘white’. Enabling the spirometer requires selection of the race, age, sex/gender and height. This is automatic activation of race correction. Such spirometer has an already programmed ‘correction’ by the manufacturer. This shows the use of race to assume genetic difference, which in turn assumes that ‘white’ have naturally higher lung capacity than other races.

Science cannot justify racial distinction or discrimination that are a result of the social construct. The assumption of inferiority attached to a race cannot be proven though science. It is a social construct and must be socially addressed. This is the reason why

since inception of the proposed Human Genome Diversity Project in 1991, it has been highly controversial. This project has an unchanging and central goal of collecting blood and human tissue samples from only “genetically distinct” indigenous groups. This is surprising that if one has to justify the racial distinction, such project must also collect blood from the “superior” race as well to enable proper scientific study and comparison. The Human Genome Diversity Project should have had accommodated a natural and social order, instead of adopting a politically charged discourses.

1. Jo C. Phelan, Bruce G. Link, and Naumi M. Feldman, ‘The genomic revolution and beliefs about essential racial differences: a backdoor to eugenics?’ (2013) 78(2) American sociological review 167-191.
2. Ian Hacking, ‘Why race still matters’ (2005) 134(1) Daedalus 102-116.
3. Braun L, Breathing race into the machine: The surprising career of the spirometer from plantation to genetics (University of Minnesota Press 2014).
4. Lundy Braun, ‘Race, ethnicity and lung function: a brief history’ (2015) 51(4) Canadian journal of respiratory therapy: CJRT= Revue canadienne de la therapie respiratoire: RCTR 99.

It is a fact that there are biologic differences among people. However, this does not mean that genetic variation among people comes under the racial categories. Race cannot define such genetic variation. Race cannot be given a quantifiable definition in genetic terms. Genomics cannot offer evidence of race being a surrogate for genetic constitution in public health. Race does not provide for a useful categorisation of genetic information in regard to drugs or diagnosis responses. The reason is race is independent of action of geneticists. It is used to organise populations and to create a classification scheme inherent in a social order. This main characteristics of race cannot be ignored by scientists.

Conclusion

Existence of race does not have anything to do with genomic science. Race is used as a means to organise, order and differentiate human populations. The use of science to justify racial segregation, whatever purposes whether medical or diagnosis, does not hold ground. The ability claimed by genomics to provide race-based medicine and treatment, or race-specific therapy presents itself as a manipulative treatment of the existence of race. It makes race even more pervasive. Arguments related to ACE-inhibitor or BiDil mentioned earlier are evidence that precise racial categories cannot be clinically use in making choices of drugs.

Attempted scientific reports to show a link between race and science do not consider the social aspects and implication. In this light, linking race and science still matters as it presents more opportunity to highlight scientific-racial discrimination. The use of race in science is either an opportunity seeking attempt to exploit race for benefit of scientific enterprise; to promote the notion of inferiority of certain race; or to justify the common practice of ‘race correction’.

1. Jenny Reardon, ‘The human genome diversity project: a case study in coproduction’ (2001) 31(3) Social studies of science 357-388.
2. Richard S. Cooper, Jay S. Kaufman, and Ryk Ward, ‘Race and genomics’ (2003) 348(12) The New England journal of medicine 1166.

Bibliography

Books

Barkan E, The retreat of scientific racism: Changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars (Cambridge University Press 1992)

L B, Breathing race into the machine: The surprising career of the spirometer from plantation to genetics (University of Minnesota Press 2014).

Reardon J, Race to the Finish: Identity and Governance in an Age of Genomics (Princeton University Press 2009)

Stepan NS, The Idea of Race in Science (Archon Books 1982)

Journals

Bolnick DA, et al., ‘The science and business of genetic ancestry testing’ (2007) 318 (5849) Science 399-400

Braun L, ‘Race, ethnicity and lung function: a brief history’ (2015) 51(4) Canadian journal of respiratory therapy: CJRT= Revue canadienne de la therapie respiratoire: RCTR 9

Carson P, et al., ‘Racial differences in response to therapy for heart failure: analysis of the vasodilator-heart failure trials’ (1999) 5(3) Journal of cardiac failure 178-187

Cooper RS, Jay S. Kaufman, and Ryk Ward, ‘Race and genomics’ (2003) 348(12) The New England journal of medicine 1166

Dries DL, et al., ‘Efficacy of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition in reducing progression from asymptomatic left ventricular dysfunction to symptomatic heart failure in black and white patients’ (2002) 40(2) Journal of the American College of Cardiology 311-317.

DV E, Dries DL, Domanski MJ, and Cohn JN, ‘Lesser response to angiotensin-converting–enzyme inhibitor therapy in black as compared with white patients with left ventricular dysfunction’ (2001) 344 N Engl J Med 1351-7

Franciosa JA, et al., ‘African-American heart failure trial (A-HeFT): rationale, design, and methodology’ (2002) 8(3) Journal of cardiac failure 128-135

Fujimura JH, Troy Duster, and Ramya Rajagopalan, ‘Introduction: Race, Genetics, and Disease: Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence’, (2008) 38(5) Social Studies of Science 643–56

Hacking I, ‘Why race still matters’ (2005) 134(1) Daedalus 102-116

Kahn J, ‘Exploiting race in drug development: BiDil's interim model of pharmacogenomics’ (2008) 38(5) Social Studies of Science 737-758.

Li JS, et al, ‘Racial Difference in Blood Pressure Response to Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitors in Children: A Meta-Analysis’ (2008) 84(3) Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 315-319

Phelan JC, Bruce G. Link, and Naumi M. Feldman, ‘The genomic revolution and beliefs about essential racial differences: a backdoor to eugenics?’ (2013) 78(2) American sociological review 167-191

Reardon J, ‘The human genome diversity project: a case study in coproduction’ (2001) 31(3) Social studies of science 357-388

The ALLHAT Officers and Coordinators for the ALLHAT Collaborative Research Group, ‘Major outcomes in high-risk hypertensive patients randomized to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or calcium channel blocker vs diuretic: the Antihypertensive and LipidLowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT)’ (2002) 288 JAMA 2981-97

Tucker WH, ‘The Ideology of Racism: Misusing Science to Justify Racial Discrimination’ (2017) UN Chronicle: The Magazine of the United Nations, XLIV (3). accessed on 14 July 2021

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