National DNA Day: Racism Disparities in Genetics
By Christine Leavitt
April 25 is National DNA Day, which designation commemorates the completion of the Human Genome Project on April 25, 2003. DNA was first recognized by scientists a little over 150 years ago, although the importance of DNA in hereditary and genetics was not understood until much later. In 1869, Fridrich Miescher identified what he called “nuclien” in human white blood cells, which is deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). However, not much was understood about “nuclein” or its purpose until 1944, when Oswald Avery identified DNA as the “transforming principle” in immunochemistry. Shortly after, in 1950, Erwin Chargaff found that DNA is the material responsible for heredity and the composition of a species. The Human Genome Project began in 1990 with the purpose of advancing the study of biology and developing technology that has the possibility to cure hereditable and debilitating diseases. While DNA has revolutionized our understanding of heredity, there is a dark history that has accompanied genetic research in the United States.
In the early 20th century, eugenics and scientific racism became popular scientific theories that were used to segregate, eliminate, and exclude certain populations who were deemed unfit. The National Human Genome Research Institute explained, “Eugenic theories and scientific racism drew support from contemporary xenophobia, antisemitism, sexism, colonialism, and imperialism, as well as justifications of slavery, particularly in the United States.” Some of the consequences that people of color experienced due to prevalent eugenic theories include forced sterilization and contraceptive use; segregation; anti-immigration policies; and political and social exclusion. Scientific racism further promoted the false ideology that wealthy white Europeans had superior knowledge and abilities in comparison to those who have been systemically and historically marginalized, including people of color and those who are economically disadvantaged.
As National DNA Day approaches, we need to question how scientific racism and eugenics continue to shape our scientific knowledge. For example, scientific research continues to use race as a category, resulting in claims such as certain racial groups being genetically conformist while other racial groups score higher on intelligence tests, despite extensive evidence that race is a socially constructed concept that is not scientifically valid. Catherine Bliss explains that “a concept of race that presumes that there are discreet genetic groups of white, black, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander is a fallacy that will always lead to social inequality.” It is therefore essential that “all of us across the sciences, throughout health policy, and in the wider public will need to reconceptualize race in terms of legacies of discrimination. We will need to shift our focus from molecular differences to social and political differences, especially when we conduct gene-environment analyses” (see https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200709/Genomics-can-perpetuate-inequality-and-structural-racism.aspx). For National DNA Day, what can you do to combat our deeply problematic history of genetic knowledge that incorporated eugenics and scientific racism? How can we collectively decolonize scientific knowledge?
