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Previous Volume 348:1170-1175 March 20, 2003 Number 12 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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A debate has recently arisen over the use of racial classification in medicine and biomedical research. In particular, with the completion of a rough draft of the human genome, some have suggested that racial classification may not be useful for biomedical studies, since it reflects "a fairly small number of genes that describe appearance"¹ and "there is no basis in the genetic code for race."² In part on the basis of these conclusions, some have argued for the exclusion of racial and ethnic classification from biomedical research.³ In the United States, race and ethnic background have been used as cause . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Race and Ethnic Background as Geographic and Sociocultural Constructs with Biologic Ramifications

Sociocultural Correlates of Race and Ethnic Background

Evidence of Genetic Differentiation among Races

Genetic Differences in Disease among Racial and Ethnic Groups

Racial and Ethnic Differences as Clues to Interactions

Racially Admixed Populations

Risks Entailed by Ignoring Race in Biomedical Research and Clinical Practice

Conclusions

Source Information

From the Lung Biology Center (E.G.B., N.C., D.S.), the Division of General Internal Medicine (E.Z., E.J.P.-S.), the Department of Medicine (E.G.B., E.Z., N.C., E.J.P.-S., D.S.), and the Medical Effectiveness Research Center for Diverse Populations (E.G.B., E.Z., E.J.P.-S.), University of California, San Francisco; and San Francisco General Hospital (E.G.B., N.C., D.S.) — both in San Francisco; the Division of Epidemiology, Department of Health Research and Policy (S.L.G.), and the Department of Genetics (N.R.), Stanford University School of Medicine, and the Department of Statistics (H.T.) and the Department of Anthropological Sciences (J.L.M.), Stanford University — both in Stanford, Calif.; the Northern California Cancer Center, Union City, Calif. (S.L.G.); and the Department of Epidemiology and Health Services Research, Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, Calif. (A.J.K., N.R.).

Drs. González Burchard and Ziv contributed equally to the article.

Address reprint requests to Dr. González Burchard at the University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143-0833, or at eburch@itsa.ucsf.edu.

Related Letters:

Race and Genomics
Williams S. M., Templeton A. R., Swallen K. C., Cooper R. S., Kaufman J. S.
Extract | Full Text | PDF  
N Engl J Med 2003; 348:2581-2582, Jun 19, 2003. Correspondence

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