Are medical and nonmedical uses of large-scale genomic markers conflating genetics and race?
The author in writing this paper, was trying to find out whether some of the common diseases have some genetic basis. However, according to past studies, there has been no argument that certain factors are responsible for the cause of common diseases. The author, therefore, wanted to revive this topic and focus in the genomic era where the target was to personalize and customize medical treatment based on people’s genome. So far, this topic has been under discussion, and some investigations have been made. This means that there is some progress on the issue. The author therefore highlights the progress and the possibility of its success.
To begin with, the author mention HapMap, which is a project that explores the patterns of DNA sequence variation in the human genome. According to the information provided by the paper, this project is under progress. If the project becomes successful, the scientist will come up with ways of identifying genetic variants that contribute to common diseases. This project is based on the hypothesis that some of the complex diseases are very common among the human population. To achieve the goal of this project, scientist will have to sample more population to get the accurate results, and for the African community, the test for the project should be magnified because this population has divergent genetic variations
The HapMap project was developed to answer some of the unanswered medical questions. However, the results of the project will have some impact on the social and emotional welfare of the people. Other people have argued that this project might trigger the existing ethnic and racial categorization. However, the author argues that the HapMap team of investigators identified the most appropriate design and have gone to greater lengths to address this issue. The author, on the other hand, discusses the differential distribution of disease genes, and he says that the worldwide distribution of genetic variants can sometimes not follow our understanding of continental social groups. We sometimes believe that the issue of evolution and adaptation might have had an impact on the distribution of disease genes, but the author says that this is not the case. According to the author, the issue of genetic variation after the investigation was against the race hypotheses, which suggest that genes from different races can have different responses on disease treatments.
The arguments of the author are very detailed, and they confirm that he did some in-depth research on the topic. I am in full support of the HapMap project because it is based on identifying the genetic variants that contribute to common diseases. In most societies in the world today, some diseases affect one community leaving another community. This always leaves the scientist into questioning the nature of the disease, and sometimes they believe that it is due to genetic variation.
For instance, some parts of Africa in the past were affected by a deadly disease called Ebola, and other parts of the world were not affected. In solving this situation, the scientist will try to figure out whether the genetic maker of this population is different, and it is the source of the disease. The HapMap project has the same concept, and it will try to figure out the solution to such health problems. If this project succeeds, I am sure that it will provide adequate solutions to the scientist regarding the issue of gene variation.