Caucasian???


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Scythia wrote:
Or, a doctor might decide that a person is of a particular race, and end up ruling out the condition, leading to death or irreparable organ damage because they used their perception of the patient's race as a diagnostic factor. I don't think that's better.

Yeah, it's possible on rare occasions the patient does actually have the least likely cause for their symptoms and will be harmed because the doctor didn't check that first. You still play the odds and prioritize - based on likelihood, severity and other factors.

Even for an apparently white guy, you should still work your way down the list and get to sickle cell, it's just much farther down than it is for the black guy. Nothing should be completely ruled out, but some things are higher priority than others.


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Scythia wrote:
How about this: if the person is showing symptoms of sickle cell anemia, and tests support the diagnosis, then you treat them for it. Race need not play a part.

You're assuming the person is showing signs of sickle cell anemia, and not signs of some other disease with similar visible symptoms.

Here's a quick list of common symptoms:

Pain areas: in the joints
Pain types: can be sudden in the chest
Whole body: dizziness, fatigue, low oxygen in the body, or malaise
Urinary: inability to make concentrated or dilute urine or blood in urine
Also common: abnormal breakdown of red blood cells, delayed development, inflamed fingers or toes, pallor, shortness of breath, or yellow skin and eyes

All of which are common symptoms of at least one other type of disease, and even taken collectively can point to a dozen other things.

Now, looking at a population where a disease that causes these symptoms is incredibly common, you can test for that first. Otherwise, you might want to test for something that's more universally common. Like say Lupus, which has these symptoms:

Pain or swelling in joints
Muscle pain
Fever with no known cause
Red rashes, most often on the face
Chest pain when taking a deep breath
Hair loss
Pale or purple fingers or toes
Sensitivity to the sun
Swelling in legs or around eyes
Mouth ulcers
Swollen glands
Feeling very tired. (Synonymous with Malaise)

Less common symptoms include:

Anemia (a decrease in red blood cells)
Headaches
Dizzy spells
Feeling sad
Confusion
Seizures.

And can impair kidney function, which can result in the jaundice (yellow skin) and urinary problems.

Now I'm no doctor so I'm sure someone with medical knowledge beyond mine can come up with a few other examples, but I think this is enough to make the point.

It's also good to keep in mind that tests cost money, especially for those of us here in the US. Taking the most likely tests first has the greater chance of diagnosing correctly quickly, and not sending the patient into crippling medical debt because you ran a battery of tests they didn't need.

Sovereign Court

Sundakan wrote:
It's also good to keep in mind that tests cost money, especially for those of us here in the US. Taking the most likely tests first has the greater chance of diagnosing correctly quickly, and not sending the patient into crippling medical debt because you ran a battery of tests they didn't need.

The tests always cost money, it just might vary who is paying for it. (Though I will say - since the US doesn't have a loser pays tort system, they actually tend to over-test for things more than in many other countries.)


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While it is true that "race" is not anywhere near as tightly defined as one would like it, nevertheless it is not a totally invalid concept either. Stainless steel artificial hip joints designed for use on "caucasoid" people can be worse than useless for those of "mongoloid" ancestry because of differences in various bone angles and curvatures between the two "races".

People of American Indian ancestry are usually at a disadvantage when it comes to metabolizing alcohol with a concurrently greatly increased chance of becoming alcoholics. It was one of the reasons why back in the day unscrupulous traders would get Indians drunk in order to better take advantage of them. It's also why Indian reservations today are almost invariably "dry", in an attempt to keep alcoholism down to a dull roar.

The connection between race and sickle cell anemia has already been touched on. However, given that blacks and whites in America have not been isolated breeding populations then the fact that somebody looks "white" does not necessarily mean that it is impossible for them to have sickle cell anemia. A couple of decades ago there was a scandal in the KKK when it turned out that one of their leaders had sickle cell anemia and thus some African ancestry in spite of the fact that one couldn't tell that simply by looking at him.

IMHO "race" is a concept that one has to be careful with. It is all too easy to read either too much or too little into what one means by it. But given that it can be a useful concept for such things as crime scene identification of remains, various medical procedures, and construction of artificial joints then I think that dismissing the concept altogether is probably not the best idea. One simply has to bear in mind the limitations of the concept and confine its use only to those areas where it can be demonstrated that it makes sense to use it.


If of race is a medically useful concept, define it. Particularly how many races are there and what are the significant differences between them?

Edit: Note that any definition that requires genetic testing is worse for costs than simply testing for multiple conditions.


Let's just hope that the need for these divisive terms dies away before they completely collapse in on themselves under the weight of their own clunkiness.


Scythia wrote:

If of race is a medically useful concept, define it. Particularly how many races are there and what are the significant differences between them?

Edit: Note that any definition that requires genetic testing is worse for costs than simply testing for multiple conditions.

Unfortunately, the only cheap definition that is medically useful is, basically, the social concept in some cases.

Since nearly all African Americans in the United States have ancestors from West Africa, for them skin color actually is indicative of risk for sickle cell anemia; nearly to a person, they all share an ancestry that would give them that risk.

It's also useful when it comes to the Asian races. The Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans all have a very low risk of sickle cell anemia because that region of Asia doesn't have much historical contact with malaria. If you know how to tell the Asian races apart, you can pretty much tell just by looking whether or not there's a serious risk of the disease.

If someone is Middle Eastern? They have a risk of sickle cell anemia that needs to be tested for. That entire region does.

It's Europeans where you absolutely can't necessarily tell by looking, since it's primarily the Mediterranean nations that have the risk for sickle cell anemia, and a lot of Caucasians are heavily mixed race.

Now, this isn't medically useful in, say, Britain; there, someone of African ancestry is equally likely to have possibly come from nearly anywhere on Earth. For them, the concept of using race in this instance is medically useless unless it's a disease related to melanin content (and, yes, a few of those exist).


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Scythia wrote:

If of race is a medically useful concept, define it. Particularly how many races are there and what are the significant differences between them?

Edit: Note that any definition that requires genetic testing is worse for costs than simply testing for multiple conditions.

Well, full genome sequencing can be done for about $1000 and in less than a day's time. Right now, that information is about as good as a detailed medical history of immediate family.

But all of that is getting better by the day. Soon it will be more expensive to store the genome data than to sequence it. And the information we get from it will be so precise that we will only need to squence a handful of codons to get at what we want.

But while you are being high and mighty about individual evidence in medical treatment, there are liver transplant recipients of African descent who are thrilled their doctors/pharmacists insisted they receive a higher dose of anti-rejection medication because they are ultra-fast metabolizers. Not to mention all the Japanese folks with Hep C who are thrilled to not be getting telaprevir because they have grown fond of functioning kidneys.


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Kazuka wrote:
Scythia wrote:

If of race is a medically useful concept, define it. Particularly how many races are there and what are the significant differences between them?

Edit: Note that any definition that requires genetic testing is worse for costs than simply testing for multiple conditions.

Unfortunately, the only cheap definition that is medically useful is, basically, the social concept in some cases.

Since nearly all African Americans in the United States have ancestors from West Africa, for them skin color actually is indicative of risk for sickle cell anemia; nearly to a person, they all share an ancestry that would give them that risk.

It's also useful when it comes to the Asian races. The Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans all have a very low risk of sickle cell anemia because that region of Asia doesn't have much historical contact with malaria. If you know how to tell the Asian races apart, you can pretty much tell just by looking whether or not there's a serious risk of the disease.

If someone is Middle Eastern? They have a risk of sickle cell anemia that needs to be tested for. That entire region does.

It's Europeans where you absolutely can't necessarily tell by looking, since it's primarily the Mediterranean nations that have the risk for sickle cell anemia, and a lot of Caucasians are heavily mixed race.

Now, this isn't medically useful in, say, Britain; there, someone of African ancestry is equally likely to have possibly come from nearly anywhere on Earth. For them, the concept of using race in this instance is medically useless unless it's a disease related to melanin content (and, yes, a few of those exist).

But even there it's very unlikely for native Brits. Much more so for those of African descent, even if you can't narrow down where they came from.

And yes, the more race mixing there is, the less useful this kind of thing will be.


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Scythia wrote:

If of race is a medically useful concept, define it. Particularly how many races are there and what are the significant differences between them?

Edit: Note that any definition that requires genetic testing is worse for costs than simply testing for multiple conditions.

If species is an ecologically useful concept define species, particularly how many species there are and the signifigant difference between them.


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BigDTBone wrote:
Scythia wrote:

If of race is a medically useful concept, define it. Particularly how many races are there and what are the significant differences between them?

Edit: Note that any definition that requires genetic testing is worse for costs than simply testing for multiple conditions.

Well, full genome sequencing can be done for about $1000 and in less than a day's time. Right now, that information is about as good as a detailed medical history of immediate family.

But all of that is getting better by the day. Soon it will be more expensive to store the genome data than to sequence it. And the information we get from it will be so precise that we will only need to squence a handful of codons to get at what we want.

But while you are being high and mighty about individual evidence in medical treatment, there are liver transplant recipients of African descent who are thrilled their doctors/pharmacists insisted they receive a higher dose of anti-rejection medication because they are ultra-fast metabolizers. Not to mention all the Japanese folks with Hep C who are thrilled to not be getting telaprevir because they have grown fond of functioning kidneys.

Another point in this is that it's not just diagnosis. Research and testing are not served well by assuming we're all just a mixed swirl of genetics and the nice random sample of college kids from the local university actually represents world diversity.


Mark Thomas 66 wrote:
She's just African, not American.

She has had a dual citizenship for almost a decade.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Scythia wrote:

If of race is a medically useful concept, define it. Particularly how many races are there and what are the significant differences between them?

Edit: Note that any definition that requires genetic testing is worse for costs than simply testing for multiple conditions.

If species is an ecologically useful concept define species, particularly how many species there are and the signifigant difference between them.

That's comparing unicycles to semi trucks. However, there is an entire discipline devoted to defining and numbering species, taxonomy. Can you say the same of human races?

You of all people should know that a term which does not have an agreed upon definition is not useful to science. Although vague terms are wonderful for philosophy.


Scythia wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Scythia wrote:

If of race is a medically useful concept, define it. Particularly how many races are there and what are the significant differences between them?

Edit: Note that any definition that requires genetic testing is worse for costs than simply testing for multiple conditions.

If species is an ecologically useful concept define species, particularly how many species there are and the signifigant difference between them.

That's comparing unicycles to semi trucks. However, there is an entire discipline devoted to defining and numbering species, taxonomy. Can you say the same of human races?

You of all people should know that a term which does not have an agreed upon definition is not useful to science. Although vague terms are wonderful for philosophy.

For humans, defining race has been part of the field of biological sciences as applied to humans. The field that's done the most work in that area lately is the field of genetics. But forensic anthropology is the one most known for it.

And a term not having an agreed-upon definition not being useful for science hasn't stopped science before and doesn't stop science now. "Species" is one of those terms. For a long time "planet" didn't have one, and even now what definition it has is highly controversial within the very field it's important to. "Sentience" is another one.

That's not even getting into the forces which might as well be supernatural for all we understand of them. Like gravity.

Science is used to dealing with the abstract and unknown. It was created to study and define them. To say something is not useful to science just because it's abstract or simply a mystery is to miss the whole point of why science even exists.


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Scythia wrote:


You of all people should know that a term which does not have an agreed upon definition is not useful to science. Although vague terms are wonderful for philosophy.

Quite the opposite. Science can get away with vague terms because it's describing something in reality that behaves a certain known way. Its descriptive, not prescriptive, and it can be that because its describing something in reality that exists independently of what you call it, so what you call it really doesn't matter that much.

Philosophical constructs need* strict definitions because they only exist in your mind.

Wolves and coyotes are very different animals for nearly anything you want to do with them despite little biological barrier to reproduction. Eastern coyotes are different than western coyotes in both size and behavior. All three groups exist and are easy to talk about in generalities but making a mathematical definition of the differences between them would be almost impossible.

A vague, blurry guideline concept like species or race is fine as long as you remember it's a vague, blurry, guideline concept.

* as much as anyone could ever need a philosophical construct *rimshot*


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Scythia wrote:


You of all people should know that a term which does not have an agreed upon definition is not useful to science. Although vague terms are wonderful for philosophy.

Quite the opposite. Science can get away with vague terms because it's describing something in reality that behaves a certain known way. Its descriptive, not prescriptive, and it can be that because its describing something in reality that exists independently of what you call it, so what you call it really doesn't matter that much.

Philosophical constructs need* strict definitions because they only exist in your mind.

Wolves and coyotes are very different animals for nearly anything you want to do with them despite little biological barrier to reproduction. Eastern coyotes are different than western coyotes in both size and behavior. All three groups exist and are easy to talk about in generalities but making a mathematical definition of the differences between them would be almost impossible.

A vague, blurry guideline concept like species or race is fine as long as you remember it's a vague, blurry, guideline concept.

* as much as anyone could ever need a philosophical construct *rimshot*

Personally, I'd prefer that my doctor work with clearly defined terms, like "heart" and "vascular system", rather than vague blurry guidelines like "innards". Ditto nuclear scientists with "atom" and "fission" compared to "glow paint stuff". Similarly engineers working in "meters" and with "kilograms" as opposed to "this big" or "kinda heavy".


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Scythia wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Scythia wrote:


You of all people should know that a term which does not have an agreed upon definition is not useful to science. Although vague terms are wonderful for philosophy.

Quite the opposite. Science can get away with vague terms because it's describing something in reality that behaves a certain known way. Its descriptive, not prescriptive, and it can be that because its describing something in reality that exists independently of what you call it, so what you call it really doesn't matter that much.

Philosophical constructs need* strict definitions because they only exist in your mind.

Wolves and coyotes are very different animals for nearly anything you want to do with them despite little biological barrier to reproduction. Eastern coyotes are different than western coyotes in both size and behavior. All three groups exist and are easy to talk about in generalities but making a mathematical definition of the differences between them would be almost impossible.

A vague, blurry guideline concept like species or race is fine as long as you remember it's a vague, blurry, guideline concept.

* as much as anyone could ever need a philosophical construct *rimshot*

Personally, I'd prefer that my doctor work with clearly defined terms, like "heart" and "vascular system", rather than vague blurry guidelines like "innards". Ditto nuclear scientists with "atom" and "fission" compared to "glow paint stuff". Similarly engineers working in "meters" and with "kilograms" as opposed to "this big" or "kinda heavy".

Right. So I'll put you down in the "Wolves, dogs and coyotes are all the same thing" category. Would you like a nice pet canid?


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Scythia wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Scythia wrote:


You of all people should know that a term which does not have an agreed upon definition is not useful to science. Although vague terms are wonderful for philosophy.

Quite the opposite. Science can get away with vague terms because it's describing something in reality that behaves a certain known way. Its descriptive, not prescriptive, and it can be that because its describing something in reality that exists independently of what you call it, so what you call it really doesn't matter that much.

Philosophical constructs need* strict definitions because they only exist in your mind.

Wolves and coyotes are very different animals for nearly anything you want to do with them despite little biological barrier to reproduction. Eastern coyotes are different than western coyotes in both size and behavior. All three groups exist and are easy to talk about in generalities but making a mathematical definition of the differences between them would be almost impossible.

A vague, blurry guideline concept like species or race is fine as long as you remember it's a vague, blurry, guideline concept.

* as much as anyone could ever need a philosophical construct *rimshot*

Personally, I'd prefer that my doctor work with clearly defined terms, like "heart" and "vascular system", rather than vague blurry guidelines like "innards". Ditto nuclear scientists with "atom" and "fission" compared to "glow paint stuff". Similarly engineers working in "meters" and with "kilograms" as opposed to "this big" or "kinda heavy".

Medicine is also 90% "well, it works this way with others, so it should work this way with my patient." As much as they rely on exact terms, most of medicine really is playing the odds that you patient is not some medical oddity. It's a field where a lot of fudging, guesswork, and gambling is pretty much mandatory.

People also die because they were too far outside the average for that particular doctor to cope with. It happens regularly.

Unfortunately, the further you are outside the norm, the more a chance of death you have.

This is why it is those imprecise terms you complain about are so important; they help create groupings that help create norms. And if "Chunasnan" is an imprecise term simply because it refers to a social practice, knowing that all "Chunasnans" have a high risk of diabetes is still medically useful even if the only way you identify a "Chunasnan" is by the silly hand tattoos they have.


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thejeff wrote:
Right. So I'll put you down in the "Wolves, dogs and coyotes are all the same thing" category. Would you like a nice pet canid?

*puts bow on head and sits in petshop window*


There is a good reason not to link race (or any social grouping) and disorders/illnesses. If a condition is something only "those people" (whoever isn't the dominant group) get, then it will not receive significant research attention or funding. By declaring a condition to be a feature of race, it decreases the chances of effective treatments or cures being found.


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Scythia wrote:
There is a good reason not to link race (or any social grouping) and disorders/illnesses. If a condition is something only "those people" (whoever isn't the dominant group) get, then it will not receive significant research attention or funding. By declaring a condition to be a feature of race, it decreases the chances of effective treatments or cures being found.

That's exactly the problem. you're acting as if the link is something we make rather than something that's there.


thejeff wrote:
Scythia wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Scythia wrote:


You of all people should know that a term which does not have an agreed upon definition is not useful to science. Although vague terms are wonderful for philosophy.

Quite the opposite. Science can get away with vague terms because it's describing something in reality that behaves a certain known way. Its descriptive, not prescriptive, and it can be that because its describing something in reality that exists independently of what you call it, so what you call it really doesn't matter that much.

Philosophical constructs need* strict definitions because they only exist in your mind.

Wolves and coyotes are very different animals for nearly anything you want to do with them despite little biological barrier to reproduction. Eastern coyotes are different than western coyotes in both size and behavior. All three groups exist and are easy to talk about in generalities but making a mathematical definition of the differences between them would be almost impossible.

A vague, blurry guideline concept like species or race is fine as long as you remember it's a vague, blurry, guideline concept.

* as much as anyone could ever need a philosophical construct *rimshot*

Personally, I'd prefer that my doctor work with clearly defined terms, like "heart" and "vascular system", rather than vague blurry guidelines like "innards". Ditto nuclear scientists with "atom" and "fission" compared to "glow paint stuff". Similarly engineers working in "meters" and with "kilograms" as opposed to "this big" or "kinda heavy".
Right. So I'll put you down in the "Wolves, dogs and coyotes are all the same thing" category. Would you like a nice pet canid?

If you're interested in an accurate comparison, you can put me down for the "all breeds of dogs are the same thing (a dog)" category. Humans don't have anything near the variation found between dog breeds, let alone between canid groups.


Scythia wrote:
There is a good reason not to link race (or any social grouping) and disorders/illnesses. If a condition is something only "those people" (whoever isn't the dominant group) get, then it will not receive significant research attention or funding. By declaring a condition to be a feature of race, it decreases the chances of effective treatments or cures being found.

Only if the people who control the research and funding are all racists, and even then not necessarily. There will still be racists who would fund such research just to prove the superiority of their own race. A way of saying "we're so much better than you that not only can we solve our problems, but your's as well."

However, if the funding is not done by racists, what it creates is a specific need for funding related to that group, and there will likely be funding set aside. Even more so if that specific race has a high concentration within the nation where the research will be done; it won't be some strangers they're helping, but their own people. And even from the conservative side of things, there's a reason to fund such research; the healthier these people are, the less you have to spend on long-term hospital stays and longer they can work without getting ill. Healthy people means less beds being filled in hospitals, which means lower costs overall. And being the company that provides what is necessary to make these people healthy means more profits for that company.

This is a win-win-win-win. The people get to be healthy, the conservatives get to say they cut medical expenses for the government, the liberals get to say they helped make the world better, and the company gets to make profits from a new source of revenue. And if you want to factor in the racists as well, they can sit back and just say they demonstrated their racial superiority, making it five wins. Everyone stands to walk away from this feeling like they accomplished something.

Sovereign Court

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Kazuka wrote:


Medicine is also 90% "well, it works this way with others, so it should work this way with my patient." As much as they rely on exact terms, most of medicine really is playing the odds that you patient is not some medical oddity. It's a field where a lot of fudging, guesswork, and gambling is pretty much mandatory.

Yeah - that gets into how hard the different sciences are. Biology is middling hard. (Traditionally Chemistry/Physics are the hard sciences, biology is middle, and sociology/psychology are the soft sciences. It's basically a ballpark for how repeatable experiments are for getting identical results.)

Liberty's Edge

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Scythia wrote:
There is a good reason not to link race (or any social grouping) and disorders/illnesses. If a condition is something only "those people" (whoever isn't the dominant group) get, then it will not receive significant research attention or funding. By declaring a condition to be a feature of race, it decreases the chances of effective treatments or cures being found.

Yeah, that sounds good and I'm sure it feels accurate, but reality says it's bullshit.

Do some reading on generic disorders among Ashkenazi Jews and then consider why routine screening for the mutations that cause, say, Tay Sachs makes sense for for someone from that but is likely a waste of time and money for someone of Japanese ancestry.


Kazuka wrote:
Scythia wrote:
There is a good reason not to link race (or any social grouping) and disorders/illnesses. If a condition is something only "those people" (whoever isn't the dominant group) get, then it will not receive significant research attention or funding. By declaring a condition to be a feature of race, it decreases the chances of effective treatments or cures being found.
Only if the people who control the research and funding are all racists, and even then not necessarily.

Well, not really. Also anyone who is driven by profit, or anyone seeking acclaim. Which has more potential to make money and draw positive attention: A treatment for a condition generally confined to 12% or less of the population (in the U.S.) and an economically disadvantaged group at that, or a condition that can strike anyone.

Answer, the one that isn't confined by race. Any company that is looking to fund research will consider return on investment, and a condition that impacts a limited population that is also a group which is disproportionately affected by poverty is basically a non-starter.

The exception of course is if the researcher and/or the funding companies were either a member of the affected group or highly sympathetic to them. This sort of population specific research is usually found in highly organized and politically active groups. A good example is the Tay-Sachs research Krensky mentions. The Jewish people are an organized and successful group with good political ties in the U.S., thus they can get research results that far exceed their presence in the population (less than 2%). Any groups that are not as organized, not as successful, and not as politically active could not expect such results.


Scythia wrote:
Kazuka wrote:
Scythia wrote:
There is a good reason not to link race (or any social grouping) and disorders/illnesses. If a condition is something only "those people" (whoever isn't the dominant group) get, then it will not receive significant research attention or funding. By declaring a condition to be a feature of race, it decreases the chances of effective treatments or cures being found.
Only if the people who control the research and funding are all racists, and even then not necessarily.
Well, not really. Also anyone who is driven by profit, or anyone seeking acclaim. Which has more potential to make money and draw positive attention: A treatment for a condition generally confined to 12% or less of the population (in the U.S.) and an economically disadvantaged group at that, or a condition that can strike anyone.

I cut off the rest of your post because it was garbage reasoning.

The answer is both. It's all in how you sell it.

That 12%? That can be sold as "we help the disadvantaged, those ignored by the rest." And that does sell. The other 88% may not have any use for that particular product, but they're certainly going to be paying attention to the rest of your products to see if there's something for them. And then, when you do introduce something for them, they're going to be more likely to buy it because they already view you in a more favorable light.

Companies do this all of the time. There are entire brands devoted to this marketing strategy. How do you think the gluton-free fad got started?

Liberty's Edge

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Way to not only miss my point, but also to perpetuate a racist stereotype in a desperate attempt to prop up your thoroughly discredited position.

Oh, and there is no cure or treatment for Tay-Sachs, only screening for the murated genes.


Kazuka wrote:
That 12%? That can be sold as "we help the disadvantaged, those ignored by the rest." And that does sell

Not nearly as well as profit. Garbage is kinda harsh and pretty unwarranted.

It doesn't matter if you dislike the idea of human races anyway: the people making the money are going to use it no matter what because it's real and it effects the bottom line. Its a big reason there's no cure for malaria: It doesn't affect places that have the money to fix it.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Kazuka wrote:
That 12%? That can be sold as "we help the disadvantaged, those ignored by the rest." And that does sell

Not nearly as well as profit. Garbage is kinda harsh and pretty unwarranted.

It doesn't matter if you dislike the idea of human races anyway: the people making the money are going to use it no matter what because it's real and it effects the bottom line. Its a big reason there's no cure for malaria: It doesn't affect places that have the money to fix it.

They used a racist statement to try to support their point. Harsher may have been warranted, but I felt it best to be polite.

It can sell very well through indirect sales. Remember when, suddenly, the television was flooded with ads for drugs to treat Hepatitis C? Hep C sufferers are not a majority of the population by far, yet there was a massive amount of money spent on that campaign.

The idea is that you want the 88% to buy, but you know they're already targeted massively by advertising and probably will ignore more directed at them. So, you advertise to the 12% instead, but do it as loudly as possible so you draw attention from the 88%. There will be people who notice you're helping this minority group and who will purchase purely for that reason. And they'll potentially tell friends and families.

It's also why companies like to advertise charity donations.

Liberty's Edge

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Kazuka wrote:
That 12%? That can be sold as "we help the disadvantaged, those ignored by the rest." And that does sell

Not nearly as well as profit. Garbage is kinda harsh and pretty unwarranted.

It doesn't matter if you dislike the idea of human races anyway: the people making the money are going to use it no matter what because it's real and it effects the bottom line. Its a big reason there's no cure for malaria: It doesn't affect places that have the money to fix it.

Well, that aND over use of DDT for agricultural purposes rather than disease control lead to most mosquitos bring resistant to it. Also a vaccine is kind of hard to make since it's a parasite, not a bacteria or virus and it's.a quick evolving one at that. Then theres the general difficulty of educational efforts relating to it in the remote places its still endemic. Malaria's continued prevalence in Africa (minty percent of cases are in Africa) has a lot to do with economics, but it's hardly the only reason.


Krensky wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Kazuka wrote:
That 12%? That can be sold as "we help the disadvantaged, those ignored by the rest." And that does sell

Not nearly as well as profit. Garbage is kinda harsh and pretty unwarranted.

It doesn't matter if you dislike the idea of human races anyway: the people making the money are going to use it no matter what because it's real and it effects the bottom line. Its a big reason there's no cure for malaria: It doesn't affect places that have the money to fix it.

Well, that aND over use of DDT for agricultural purposes rather than disease control lead to most mosquitos bring resistant to it. Also a vaccine is kind of hard to make since it's a parasite, not a bacteria or virus and it's.a quick evolving one at that. Then theres the general difficulty of educational efforts relating to it in the remote places its still endemic. Malaria's continued prevalence in Africa (minty percent of cases are in Africa) has a lot to do with economics, but it's hardly the only reason.

There's also the fact that malaria is one of the treatments for syphilis and modern antibiotic-resistance has made some doctors leery of calling for malaria's extermination.

It's one of those medical discoveries that earned a Nobel Prize, since it was the first effective cure for that disease.


I just noticed that the census we got up here in Canada never asked for race. The closest it got to asking about race was asking about your native language.

Sorry for jumping right to page 4 and not reading everything, but aren't there medications that have a different effect on different "races?" I remember on M*A*S*H there was some medication that had some super nasty side effects on people of Mediterranean descent (Which immediately caught my attention) but was a lot easier on people that are, well, not.


Jaçinto wrote:

I just noticed that the census we got up here in Canada never asked for race. The closest it got to asking about race was asking about your native language.

Sorry for jumping right to page 4 and not reading everything, but aren't there medications that have a different effect on different "races?" I remember on M*A*S*H there was some medication that had some super nasty side effects on people of Mediterranean descent (Which immediately caught my attention) but was a lot easier on people that are, well, not.

Some medications, such as HIV drugs, vary based on race. All medications vary based on birth sex. They can also vary based on height, weight, level of physical activity...

Basically, race is one of the major factors, but it's far from the only one. And some factors, such as birth sex, have a more far-ranging effect.


If anyone thought that what I said was racist, I apologize.

Liberty's Edge

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That's a nonappology.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

My only point is that, at least within medicine, race is a relevant issue. It rarely comes up, but when it does, you need to be aware of it. Humanity is far from random genes. Study of the differences and similarities of race is not by itself, blasphemy. The difference between humans is enormous, startling and magnificent, and it should not lead to morons saying one configuration is better than some other.

That said, it does. Morons will always mistreat others for the flimsiest reasons. Whether you are fat, thin, male, female, black, white, or have a patch on your jeans, you will be targeted. Perhaps we shouldn't give the morons ammunition? But when it comes to medical biochemistry, please let us not ignore what knowledge we have and say "lalala he said race he must be racist!!!"


Sissyl wrote:

My only point is that, at least within medicine, race is a relevant issue. It rarely comes up, but when it does, you need to be aware of it. Humanity is far from random genes. Study of the differences and similarities of race is not by itself, blasphemy. The difference between humans is enormous, startling and magnificent, and it should not lead to morons saying one configuration is better than some other.

That said, it does. Morons will always mistreat others for the flimsiest reasons. Whether you are fat, thin, male, female, black, white, or have a patch on your jeans, you will be targeted. Perhaps we shouldn't give the morons ammunition? But when it comes to medical biochemistry, please let us not ignore what knowledge we have and say "lalala he said race he must be racist!!!"

I don't think you're automatically racist for saying race. I think that, given the specificity of testing available at this point, describing the characteristics that rarely come up but matter when they do as race seems equivalent to using the terminology of the four humors when we're able to type blood.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Hitdice wrote:
Sissyl wrote:

My only point is that, at least within medicine, race is a relevant issue. It rarely comes up, but when it does, you need to be aware of it. Humanity is far from random genes. Study of the differences and similarities of race is not by itself, blasphemy. The difference between humans is enormous, startling and magnificent, and it should not lead to morons saying one configuration is better than some other.

That said, it does. Morons will always mistreat others for the flimsiest reasons. Whether you are fat, thin, male, female, black, white, or have a patch on your jeans, you will be targeted. Perhaps we shouldn't give the morons ammunition? But when it comes to medical biochemistry, please let us not ignore what knowledge we have and say "lalala he said race he must be racist!!!"

I don't think you're automatically racist for saying race. I think that, given the specificity of testing available at this point, describing the characteristics that rarely come up but matter when they do as race seems equivalent to using the terminology of the four humors when we're able to type blood.

from inside of tanning booth

I keep my bile levels in balance with my phlegm...


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Freehold DM wrote:
Hitdice wrote:
Sissyl wrote:

My only point is that, at least within medicine, race is a relevant issue. It rarely comes up, but when it does, you need to be aware of it. Humanity is far from random genes. Study of the differences and similarities of race is not by itself, blasphemy. The difference between humans is enormous, startling and magnificent, and it should not lead to morons saying one configuration is better than some other.

That said, it does. Morons will always mistreat others for the flimsiest reasons. Whether you are fat, thin, male, female, black, white, or have a patch on your jeans, you will be targeted. Perhaps we shouldn't give the morons ammunition? But when it comes to medical biochemistry, please let us not ignore what knowledge we have and say "lalala he said race he must be racist!!!"

I don't think you're automatically racist for saying race. I think that, given the specificity of testing available at this point, describing the characteristics that rarely come up but matter when they do as race seems equivalent to using the terminology of the four humors when we're able to type blood.

from inside of tanning booth

I keep my bile levels in balance with my phlegm...

Wait, black bile or yellow bile? They're two different things!


Hitdice wrote:
Freehold DM wrote:
Hitdice wrote:
Sissyl wrote:

My only point is that, at least within medicine, race is a relevant issue. It rarely comes up, but when it does, you need to be aware of it. Humanity is far from random genes. Study of the differences and similarities of race is not by itself, blasphemy. The difference between humans is enormous, startling and magnificent, and it should not lead to morons saying one configuration is better than some other.

That said, it does. Morons will always mistreat others for the flimsiest reasons. Whether you are fat, thin, male, female, black, white, or have a patch on your jeans, you will be targeted. Perhaps we shouldn't give the morons ammunition? But when it comes to medical biochemistry, please let us not ignore what knowledge we have and say "lalala he said race he must be racist!!!"

I don't think you're automatically racist for saying race. I think that, given the specificity of testing available at this point, describing the characteristics that rarely come up but matter when they do as race seems equivalent to using the terminology of the four humors when we're able to type blood.

from inside of tanning booth

I keep my bile levels in balance with my phlegm...

Wait, black bile or yellow bile? They're two different things!

I thought phlegm was yellow bile?


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Humorous aside:

Blood / Sanguine Humor / Air
Blood is Hot and Wet, or Warm and Moist. It is the very essence of vitality and health, nutrition and growth. Blood is perfect nourishment perfectly digested. Its receptacle or home is in the arteries and blood vessels. Blood carries the Vital Force and Innate Heat, which power cellular metabolism. The essence of blood is exchange and contact, as it is the basic nutritional and metabolic currency of the organism. Blood has an Attractive virtue, or force, since all cells, organs and tissues have an absolute need for it, and are therefore attracted to it.

Phlegm / Phlegmatic Humor / Water
The Phlegmatic humor is Cold and Wet. It includes not just phlegm, but all the other clear fluids of the body: mucus, saliva, plasma, lymph, and serous and interstitial fluids. Together, these fluids cool, moisten, nourish, lubricate, protect, and purify the organism. The Plegmatic humor has an Expulsive virtue, or force, which flushes out impurities, transports vital nutrients, and helps eliminate wastes. The home of the Phlegmatic humor is in the veins and lymphatics. The Phlegmatic humor nourishes the body on a deep and fundamental level.

Yellow Bile / Choleric Humor / Fire
The Choleric humor is Hot and Dry. It is produced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder. Bile has a hot, caustic nature and a Digestive virtue, or force, which gives it a strong affinity with the other digestive secretions of the middle GI tract. Fire and bile digest and consume, metabolize and transform. Digestively, bile powers digestion; digests, assimilates and excretes fats and cholesterol; and acts as a natural laxative to stimulate intestinal peristalsis and defecation. It also colors the stool brown. Systemically, Choleric residues in the bloodstream thin the blood, enabling it to penetrate through the finest capillaries; empowers the inflammatory response; and opens up the lungs and respiratory passages as a surfactant.

Black Bile / Melancholic Humor / Earth
Black Bile is Cold and Dry. Healthy black bile is a normal sediment of blood, or the Sanguine humor. Black Bile has a Retentive virtue or force, and a cooling, drying, astringing, precipitating, condensing, coagulating, solidifying effect on metabolism necessary for building the bones, teeth, and all dense, solid structural connective tissues of the body. Digestively, Black Bile awakens the stomach and appetite, solidifies the stool, and enables the digestive organs to hold on to their contents long enough to process them properly. Systemically, Melancholic residues in the bloodstream thicken the blood, enabling it to clot; this is vitally important in wound granulation, scar tissue formation, and all structural repair of the body. Black Bile also governs mineral metabolism and bone formation.


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Freehold DM wrote:
Hitdice wrote:
Freehold DM wrote:
Hitdice wrote:
Sissyl wrote:

My only point is that, at least within medicine, race is a relevant issue. It rarely comes up, but when it does, you need to be aware of it. Humanity is far from random genes. Study of the differences and similarities of race is not by itself, blasphemy. The difference between humans is enormous, startling and magnificent, and it should not lead to morons saying one configuration is better than some other.

That said, it does. Morons will always mistreat others for the flimsiest reasons. Whether you are fat, thin, male, female, black, white, or have a patch on your jeans, you will be targeted. Perhaps we shouldn't give the morons ammunition? But when it comes to medical biochemistry, please let us not ignore what knowledge we have and say "lalala he said race he must be racist!!!"

I don't think you're automatically racist for saying race. I think that, given the specificity of testing available at this point, describing the characteristics that rarely come up but matter when they do as race seems equivalent to using the terminology of the four humors when we're able to type blood.

from inside of tanning booth

I keep my bile levels in balance with my phlegm...

Wait, black bile or yellow bile? They're two different things!
I thought phlegm was yellow bile?

Oh jeez Freehold, your post history makes an entirely different kind of sense when considered in light of misbalanced humors! :P


Hitdice wrote:
Sissyl wrote:

My only point is that, at least within medicine, race is a relevant issue. It rarely comes up, but when it does, you need to be aware of it. Humanity is far from random genes. Study of the differences and similarities of race is not by itself, blasphemy. The difference between humans is enormous, startling and magnificent, and it should not lead to morons saying one configuration is better than some other.

That said, it does. Morons will always mistreat others for the flimsiest reasons. Whether you are fat, thin, male, female, black, white, or have a patch on your jeans, you will be targeted. Perhaps we shouldn't give the morons ammunition? But when it comes to medical biochemistry, please let us not ignore what knowledge we have and say "lalala he said race he must be racist!!!"

I don't think you're automatically racist for saying race. I think that, given the specificity of testing available at this point, describing the characteristics that rarely come up but matter when they do as race seems equivalent to using the terminology of the four humors when we're able to type blood.

Unfortunately, when it comes to bloodtyping as an analogy, the four humors are about as accurate as anything else we have access to. A lot of modern medical science in practice is the equivalent of sniffing a vial of blood and going, "Okay, I'm pretty sure this came from a chicken..."

Just because the testing exists doesn't mean there's that many people doing it or that it's commonly-available. That is why we don't do a full biochemistry work-up on everyone, or even most people, but instead rely on averages and norms.

People tend to seriously overestimate how advanced we are in certain fields. Medical science is one of them.


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Kazuka wrote:
Hitdice wrote:


I don't think you're automatically racist for saying race. I think that, given the specificity of testing available at this point, describing the characteristics that rarely come up but matter when they do as race seems equivalent to using the terminology of the four humors when we're able to type blood.

Unfortunately, when it comes to bloodtyping as an analogy, the four humors are about as accurate as anything else we have access to. A lot of modern medical science in practice is the equivalent of sniffing a vial of blood and going, "Okay, I'm pretty sure this came from a chicken..."

Just because the testing exists doesn't mean there's that many people doing it or that it's commonly-available. That is why we don't do a full biochemistry work-up on everyone, or even most people, but instead rely on averages and norms.

People tend to seriously overestimate how advanced we are in certain fields. Medical science is one of them.

Yeah, it would be great if we could just wave a tricorder over a patient and get back a full report of exactly what's wrong with them. Sadly, there's still an awful lot of assumption, guesswork and experience in medicine. People are complicated and it's hard to tell exactly what's going wrong with them. Somethings we can test for, but even then you have to decide what to test for since you can't look for everything.

And sometimes you don't need to test or even know exactly what's wrong: I had an infection from a cut on my arm a few weeks back - all swollen up and hot. Doctor looked at it and gave me antibiotics. Didn't test the blood or anything else for a scientific diagnosis. It worked. Infection went away. Maybe it would have on its own without the antibiotics. Maybe not.

With some populations, some that loosely fit what we think of as races, those averages and norms are different for some things. That's useful to know when figuring out the problem. It's certainly not the only thing to consider and often narrowing it down beyond the broad race is useful if possible, but it's still a factor.


Kazuka wrote:

There's also the fact that malaria is one of the treatments for syphilis and modern antibiotic-resistance has made some doctors leery of calling for malaria's extermination.

That is an utterly absurd line of reasoning. You can keep something stored in a lab somewhere like polio in the off hand chance you need to study it. It doesn't need to be out in the wild.

I can tell you first hand how much malaria sucks.


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It is not necessarily about race as such. It is about probabilities of having different genes. It is more relevant to ask someone if they have heredity from the Mediterranean region regarding thalassemia than to assume they do. But, again, which people do you ask that?


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Kazuka wrote:

There's also the fact that malaria is one of the treatments for syphilis and modern antibiotic-resistance has made some doctors leery of calling for malaria's extermination.

That is an utterly absurd line of reasoning. You can keep something stored in a lab somewhere like polio in the off hand chance you need to study it. It doesn't need to be out in the wild.

I can tell you first hand how much malaria sucks.

It's not about being able to study the disease. It's about being rapidly able to infect a large population with malaria to counter a syphilis epidemic. That is one scenario where storing it in a lab potentially is the less effective option. And as insane as it sounds, medical science once considered syphilis to be worse.

There are those working to exterminate it, but to date every attempt has failed. From the DDT-chloroquine program of the 1950s and 1960s that ended in the World Health Organization abandoning attempts to exterminate malaria to the modern efforts with artemisinin, they've had one problem: Cambodia. From that nation arises the new, highly-resistant strains of malaria that quickly spread all over the globe. As long as Cambodia exists, all efforts at eradication end in failure.

So, since we can't eradicate it anyway, how insane the reasons are for keeping it around may be is ultimately pointless; it's sticking around no matter what. We might as well see if there's a potential use for it.


Kazuka wrote:


It's not about being able to study the disease. It's about being rapidly able to infect a large population with malaria to counter a syphilis epidemic. That is one scenario where storing it in a lab potentially is the less effective option. And as insane as it sounds, medical science once considered syphilis to be worse.

And what you're saying is that there's a conspiracy to not eradicate malaria, leaving millions of people sick if not dead, because there's the possibility of a syphilis outbreak that we're going to have to counter with a malaria outbreak, despite malaria not being very prevalent in a lot of areas you would want to use it in.

The people in tin foil hats still call that crazy.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
Kazuka wrote:


It's not about being able to study the disease. It's about being rapidly able to infect a large population with malaria to counter a syphilis epidemic. That is one scenario where storing it in a lab potentially is the less effective option. And as insane as it sounds, medical science once considered syphilis to be worse.

And what you're saying is that there's a conspiracy to not eradicate malaria, leaving millions of people sick if not dead, because there's the possibility of a syphilis outbreak that we're going to have to counter with a malaria outbreak, despite malaria not being very prevalent in a lot of areas you would want to use it in.

The people in tin foil hats still call that crazy.

Considering a conspiracy theory is precisely not what I'm saying, you're right. That is crazy.

There's a difference between "leery" and "conspiracy theory." Learn it. Because if every time you see the idea someone is leery of something and think they're in some kind of conspiracy, then you're the one with the tinfoil hat issue.

And do you really think it would be that difficult to introduce a malaria outbreak in areas we'd need one in to counter syphilis in this era?

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