As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least to do no harm."
This has been mistakenly attributed to the Hippocratic oath;
"First: Do no harm."
However, today it should read:
"First: Be politically correct, then do no harm."
Marxism has penetrated every walk of life, including the medical profession. Even though science has shown biological / genetic differences between racial groups, it is still considered "controversial" to conduct "race-specific" research in medicine.
It is more important to obscure this medical breakthrough in controversy, so that it may not see the light of day. This type of research only lends credibility to "White Supremacists" like David Duke;
["The sociologists are afraid that one group will use this sort of information to try to subjugate another group," Dr. Burchard explains. "That’s the fear. I mean, David Duke [former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan] probably loves the kind of research we do because it seems to play right into his supremacist views."]
Political Correctness is the new religion and anyone that questions the high priests of this cult are labeled "racist". This word has the effect "heretic" had during the medieval period of Europe with the net result being the same...exclusion from mainstream society.
Here are the Politically Correct principals of the NWO:
--Promote the idea that the races are the same, and displacing whites largely with the third world will not harm Western societies.
--Promote the idea that our species isn't predatory, by nature, and that diversity "enriches" and "strengthens" a society.
--Promote feminism, the idea that the world is already overpopulated, that a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, that marriage is slavery, our daughters should think career first, and children secondary, at best -- to keep the European birthrate below replacement level.
--Promote any ruse to flood the West with nonwhites.
--Encourage nonwhites to be racially conscious, to organize along racial lines, to appoint racially defined leaders, and to discriminate when in their ethnic interests, and to castigate Europeans who show the same behavior.
--Create a culture that punishes European races for showing just a hint of racial aggression, and for opposing the genocidal impact of multiculturalism.
(Thanks to blogger, Joe Morgan, for the above-mentioned PC principles)
(PS)
First: Do No Harm?
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a drug called "BiDil" to treat blacks suffering from advanced heart failure has sparked a storm of controversy.
While some are hailing the advent of race-specific treatments as a medical breakthrough, others are concerned about the possible implications, both medical and social, of using race as a guide for medical treatment.
In a study conducted by the drug’s manufacturer, Massachusetts-based NitroMed Inc., BiDil, which is actually a combination of two existing heart drugs, was shown to significantly reduce heart failure deaths among black Americans. Blacks are more than twice as likely to suffer from heart failure as whites.
The results of that study, according to proponents of race-based therapeutics, suggest that genetics plays a significant role in determining a patient’s responsiveness to a particular drug.
Opponents of race-based drug treatments insist they aren’t arguing that genetics may be a contributing factor.
But they’re not convinced that genetic makeup is necessarily determined by race since, thus far, studies have shown more genetic variance within a given race than between races.
But supporters of continuing research into race-based medicine, argue that there are too many genetic commonalities among members of an ethnic group to just ignore race all together when determining an appropriate course of treatment.
NATURE VS. NURTURE
It is a well-accepted fact that certain ethnic groups are predisposed to certain illnesses. Asians, for instance, are at higher risk for developing liver cancer and stomach cancer than any other ethnic group. Also, heart disease is one of the biggest killers of Asian men and women in the United States.
For many years, that was blamed solely on environmental factors and cultural factors like diet, lifestyle, age, education, access to health care and the role that language barriers may play in limiting that access. But in recent years, that predisposition has also been found to be genetic in nature. To what degree genetics is a factor, however, is still being fiercely debated.
Based on the evidence she has seen, Sherry Hirota, CEO of Oakland-based Asian Health Services Inc., believes genetics and environment both play important roles.
"It’s likely that genetics acts as the foundation or the base for being susceptible to the disease," she explains, "while environment, and especially diet, acts as the building blocks for the development of the disease."
"Genetics exerts a tremendous impact on disease," adds Abjhit Ghosh, of the South Asian Public Health Association. "Genes provide the protein for everything in the human body."
But Nadine Chan, chair of the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus for Public Health, downplays genetics’ role and believes environmental factors are the likelier culprit.
"Genetics plays a small role," she says.
As proof, Chan, a doctoral research fellow at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine, points to the high incidence of cervical cancer among Vietnamese American women. Vietnamese American women are five times more likely to develop cervical cancer than white women.
The reason for that, Chan argues, isn’t genetics but, rather, that, unlike white women, Vietnamese American women aren’t getting yearly Pap smear tests, which can detect abnormal cells before they become cancerous. Chan believes that, if Vietnamese American women were to see a doctor more regularly, the cervical cancer rates within that community would be dramatically reduced.
GENETICS VS. RACE
On one side of the heated debate over race-based therapeutics is ethicists and sociologists who argue that 'race" is a socially defined construct with no biological definition and, therefore, no research value. The focus, according to this camp, should be on minimizing the environmental factors that have already been proven to contribute to illness.
On the other side is a camp of researchers arguing biology’s role in everything, including race.
"But it’s not a black and white issue," says Dr. Esteban Gonzalez Burchard, an assistant professor of biopharmaceutical science and medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. By the way, Burchard, who specializes in the study of pharmacogenetics — that is, how genetic factors affect response to medication — believes that disease is attributable to a complex interplay of genetic and environmental factors.
He acknowledges that the genetic variation between ethnic groups is small, less than 7 percent in fact. Still, he argues, this variation, though seemingly dismissible, is very relevant from a research standpoint:
"It allows us to cluster people for research purposes," he says. "You have to remember, no one has said, ‘You need to treat people based on race.’ All we have said is that there are some interesting differences between racial groups in terms of prevalence of disease and responses to treatment that we feel deserve a closer look."
But Dr. Carol Somkin, a researcher at Kaiser Permanente, suggests that Burchard and his fellow researchers may be barking up the wrong tree. The notion of race, she argues, is little more than a convenient proxy in race-based treatment studies, and an unreliable one at that.
"[The researchers] really need to think about what race is a proxy for," says Burchard, who describes her views on race-based drugs as "agnostic." "Is it genetic or not? It’s hard to tell at this point."
But Kathy Lee, a student at the Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine and national president of the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA), argues that race-based drug treatment is really just an extension of existing treatment methodology.
"As medical students, we are taught from the very first year that race is an important and essential factor we must take into consideration when deciding on potential diagnoses and therapies," Lee says. "So race-based drug treatments make sense from a therapeutic point of view."
DANGER AHEAD?
So if race has long been considered a variable in determining a patient’s risk of disease, then why is it so controversial to use race to determine how best to treat that disease? Some fear how this information might be interpreted and used, particularly in an environment where racism is still so prevalent.
Clifford M. Tong, founder of Ethnic Majority, an Oakland-based nonprofit pushing for improved access to employment, housing and health care for people of color, says he supports continuing research into the viability of race-based therapeutics.
But he questions the ethics of bottom-line-driven pharmaceutical companies, whom he fears might be tempted to focus on developing broader spectrum drugs, from which the companies stand to make the most money.
Tong argues that, from a strictly-business standpoint, it would hardly make sense for the drug companies to pour millions of dollars into developing drugs specifically for the Asian Pacific American community — the reason being that the APA community accounts for less than 5 percent of the population.
"They’re more likely to develop another Viagra," he says. "That’s a huge money-maker for the drug companies because it’s marketed to everyone."
Others fear that race will be mistakenly seen as an end-all guide for prescribing treatment, as opposed to just a jumping-off point for doctors.
Prescribing a course of treatment based on race alone, they say, without taking into account the myriad other contributing factors, is not only ineffective, it’s also dangerous.
"Optimal treatment decisions are ultimately based on probabilities of improvement," explains Sanjeev Vaishnavi, who is currently the executive adviser of the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association.
"Race is an important factor used to calculate these probabilities … [but] it cannot be and should not be the sole criteria."
NO TURNING BACK
Still others warn of the potentially divisive nature of race-based drug research.
"Where I worry is when you start down a line that excludes people," explains Dr. Somkin. "The studies are going to have to be done very carefully."
If the scientific community and medical community continue to focus on the seemingly minor genetic differences between races and how those differences factor into the prevalence of certain diseases for a given ethnic group, some worry that it’s only a matter of time before words like "inferior" and "superior" pop up.
"The sociologists are afraid that one group will use this sort of information to try to subjugate another group," Dr. Burchard explains. "That’s the fear. I mean, David Duke [former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan] probably loves the kind of research we do because it seems to play right into his supremacist views."
Burchard understands that suggesting one ethnic group is intrinsically different from another ethnic group is hardly politically correct. But he says he fails to see how letting political correctness stand in the way of progress and saving lives is in anyone’s best interest.
"We can’t not look into this because we’re afraid of what might potentially happen," he adds.
ManChui Leung, HIV program director at the Asian & Pacific Island American Health Forum in San Francisco, agrees, but also warns researchers in this field to tread carefully.
"Political correctness should not figure into medical research, but sound medical and social ethics should," she adds.
Despite the controversy surrounding race-based therapeutics and critics who contend that related studies have, thus far, been flawed, the scientific community is pushing forward with its research.
Winston Wong, a family physician with Oakland-based Asian Health Services and clinical director of Kaiser Permanente’s National Community Benefits Program, is anxious to see the outcome and says he wouldn’t be surprised to see a major breakthrough in this field in as little as five years.
"It’s no secret that certain therapies are more effective with certain groups," he says. "I think we need to find out why that is. And, because of this whole race-based therapy issue, the research community is beginning to recognize the importance of recruiting a pool of participants for their studies that really reflects the diversity of the population. Ultimately, we’ll all benefit from that."
["The sociologists are afraid that one group will use this sort of information to try to subjugate another group," Dr. Burchard explains. "That’s the fear. I mean, David Duke [former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan] probably loves the kind of research we do because it seems to play right into his supremacist views."]
the following song must have been ispired by a jew because this is exactly what he wants....
Pardon me, your epidermis is showing
I couldn't help but note your shade of melanin
I tip my hat to the colorful arrangement
cause I see (the) beauty in the tones of our skin
We gotta come together, and thank the maker of us all
We're colored people, and we live in a tainted place
We're colored people, and they call us the human race
We've got a history of mistakes
And we are colored people who depend on a Holy Grace
A piece of canvas is only the beginning
It takes on character with every loving stroke
This thing of beauty is the passion of an artist's heart
By God's design, we are a skin kaleidoscope
We gotta come together, aren't we all human after all?
Ignorance has wronged some races
And vengeance is the Lord's
If we aspire to share this space
Repentance is the cure
Well, just a day in the shoes of a color blind man
Should make it easy for you to see
That these diverse tones do more than cover our bones
As a part of our anatomy
Posted by: katman | June 12, 2008 at 09:56 AM