Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2006 Fall;34(3):497-9, 479.
doi: 10.1111/j.1748-720x.2006.00061.x.

Racial and ethnic categories in biomedical research: there is no baby in the bathwater

Mildred K Cho  1
Affiliations

Racial and ethnic categories in biomedical research: there is no baby in the bathwater

Mildred K Cho. J Law Med Ethics. 2006 Fall.

Abstract

The use of racial categories in biomedicine has had a long history in the United States. However, social hierarchy and discrimination, justified by purported scientific differences, has also plagued the history of racial categories. Because "race" has some correlation with biological and genetic characteristics, there has been a call not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" by eliminating race as a research or clinical category. I argue that race is too undefined and fluid to be useful as a proxy for biology or genetics.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Cohn J. The Use of Race and Ethnicity in Medicine: Letters from the African-American Heart Failure Trial. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. 2006;34(3):552–554. - PubMed
    1. Sankar P, Cho M. Toward a New Vocabulary of Human Genetic Variation. Science. 2002;298:1337–38. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cho M, Sankar P. Forensic Genetics: ELSI Beyond the Clinic. Nature Genetics. 2004;36:S8–S12. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ossorio P, Duster T. Controversies in Biomedical, Behavioral, and Forensic Sciences. American Psychologist. 2005;60:115–128. - PubMed
    2. Duster T. Lessons From History: Why Race and Ethnicity Have Played a Major Role in Biomedical Research. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics. 2006;34(3):487–496. - PubMed
    1. Lee S, Mountain J, Koenig B. The Meanings of ‘race’ in the New Genomics: Implications for Health Disparities Research. Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics. 2001;1:33–75. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources