Now is the Time for a Postracial Medicine: Biomedical Research, the National Institutes of Health, and the Perpetuation of Scientific Racism

Abstract

The consideration of racial differences in the biology of disease and treatment options is a hallmark of modern medicine. However, this time-honored medical tradition has no scientific basis, and the premise itself, that is, the existence of biological differences between the commonly known races, is false inasmuch as races are only sociocultural constructions. It is time to rid medical research of the highly damaging exercise of searching for supposed racial differences in the biological manifestations of disease. The practice not only condoned but required by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of utilizing racial identification as a demographic characteristic with assumed biological implications is at best badly flawed, and at worst unintentionally contributes to perpetuating the fallacy of natural differences between persons of different skin color, which has been used in the past to advance the cause of racial discrimination.

Inclusiveness and ethical considerations for observational, translational, and clinical cancer health disparity research

“…The 5 categories of race (American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, black or African American, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and white) as defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) were intended to meet a minimum recommended standard of reporting for race/ethnicity data . Applying broad OMB race categories to biomedical research has drawbacks stemming from their intended use as a sociopolitical and cultural indicator and not as a variable for the study of biological associations between race and disease . First, due to the lack of an agreed‐upon scientific definition, these categories are vulnerable to misclassification.…”

“…Genetic variations between racial or ethnic groups are much lower than the variation within racial categories, suggesting no genetic link between these groups. Finally, the relationship between racial disparity and cancer outcomes remains complex, in part due to the well‐established link between racial and ethnically driven socioeconomic disparity . One reason that minority representation is low has to do with the number of racial and ethnic minorities who never enter treatment or who do not have the time or resources to participate in nonobservational studies .…”

“…59 Applying broad OMB race categories to biomedical research has drawbacks stemming from their intended use as a sociopolitical and cultural indicator and not as a variable for the study of biological associations between race and disease. 60 First, due to the lack of an agreed-upon scientific definition, these categories are vulnerable to misclassification. Previous works have shown that both multiracial and granular classifications of race and ethnicity confound and bias the associations between all races in OMB categories and disease.…”

“…Finally, the relationship between racial disparity and cancer outcomes remains complex, in part due to the well-established link between racial and ethnically driven socioeconomic disparity. 60 One reason that minority representation is low has to do with the number of racial and ethnic minorities who never enter treatment or who do not have the time or resources to participate in nonobservational studies. 64 In this research, we used categorical race variables to evaluate the minimal level of inclusiveness in each research design because broad race categories were the only consistently available measure of race/ ethnicity across all studies considered.…”

Race and Health: Dilemmas of the South African health researcher

“…For example, in 2017, the American Journal of Bioethics published an article titled "Now Is the Time for a Postracial Medicine: Biomedical Research, the National Institutes of Health, and the Perpetuation of Scientific Racism". 7 We do not have the space here to review the many responses both in the issue in which the article appeared and elsewhere, but these provide useful contextual readings for anyone considering race issues in health-related research. Recently, Gutin 8 has joined a global chorus of researchers and scientists calling for health scientists and practitioners to develop a more sophisticated…”