Poverty, Genetics and the White American Psyche
By Tanya H. Lee,
Indian Country
| 02. 05. 2015
The sequencing of the human genome and the science that made that feat possible have led to some fascinating new research into genetics. Among the most intriguing projects are those that link poverty to genetic changes in children and those that strongly imply that genetic changes caused by environmental factors, as well as those that result from random mutations, can be passed from one generation to the next.
This research can be interpreted from a social justice perspective as proof that poverty, particularly child poverty, is a human rights issue. It can be used to develop interventions to help kids compensate for the effects poverty may have on their brains and bodies. It can lead to legislation that lessens the gap between the wealthy and the poor and raises everyone to an acceptable standard of living.
Or not.
As a nation that was founded and built on the premise that some people (those of Northern European extraction) are inherently and irrevocably superior to other people (pretty much everyone else), we need to be very careful about how we understand and...
Related Articles
By Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic | 03.18.2024
People are discovering the truth about their biological parents with DNA—and learning that incest is far more common than many think.
When Steve Edsel was a boy, his adoptive parents kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings in their bedroom closet...
By Antonio Regalado, MIT Technology Review | 03.20.2024
There is a new most expensive drug ever—a gene therapy that costs as much as a Brooklyn brownstone or a Miami mansion, and more than the average person will earn in a lifetime.
Lenmeldy is a gene treatment for metachromatic...
By Carl Zimmer, The New York Times | 03.10.2024
In 1889, a French doctor named Francois-Gilbert Viault climbed down from a mountain in the Andes, drew blood from his arm and inspected it under a microscope. Dr. Viault’s red blood cells, which ferry oxygen, had surged 42 percent. He...
By Nick Paul Taylor, BioSpace | 03.14.2024
A U.K. watchdog balked at the cost-effectiveness of Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ CRISPR-based sickle cell disease therapy Thursday, recommending against funding the treatment unless uncertainties can be cleared up satisfactorily.
The U.K. became the first country to authorize Vertex’s Casgevy (exagamglogene...