Schadrach

which doesn’t necessarily lead to “people with African ancestry need fewer vaccines

But it might (and I want to emphasize might, as in would require further study) mean that people of African ancestry could benefit from a different vaccine schedule than people of primarily European decent. Another thing in the “would be interesting and maybe even useful to know, but impossible to research and/or publish in the current environment” bucket.

That doesn’t qualify you to be a Secretary - that qualifies you to be President.

I do not. I don’t trust RFK Jr to do anything right except possibly by accident.

I actually agree with him about some of the food additive stuff. Shame he blew his stopped clock moment before even being confirmed.

You don’t need personal genomics to broadly do better than simply lumping everyone in one bucket. Various ethnic/racial groups have been mostly reproductively isolated from each other for most of history, which means certain things are significantly more common in some groups than others, which means you can get more effective use of resources by targeting things like screening and prevention at groups where the disease is more likely.

Personal genomics would let you target even more closely, but using race or family history is just estimating genomics by proxy.

For example, sickle cell and black folks, or cystic fibrosis and white folks, or maple syrup urine disease and the Amish or methemoglobinemia and one family from eastern Kentucky.

You left out Maple Syrup Urine Disease which is both not a thing I made up (despite how it sounds) and also mostly a thing among the Pennsylvania Dutch (aka Amish) that causes the body to be unable to break down several amino acids.

This is pretty disingenuous, the vast majority of sickle cell cases are non-hispanic blacks. Hispanics and whites also get sickle cell. If you’re grouping all those ethnicities in there, you might as well include whites too.

It’s genetic. It’s more prevalent in some populations than others because sickle cell also makes one resistant to malaria, so the more common malaria has been somewhere historically, the more likely people descended from there are to have sickle cell.

Like how people of European descent are more likely to be resistant to the Black Death. Turns out diseases that kill lots of people apply significant selection pressure and those changes don’t vanish quickly unless they cause a problem that would prevent breeding in successive generations.

Can we just have the most qualified doctor regardless of race in place of the unqualified heroin addict? I’ll take that. They can be a black trans lesbian (or not for any/all of those) for all it matters, so long as they actually know their shit.

Like RFK has already blown his stopped clock moment, and it was about food additives - can we get someone who will still do that bit but is also otherwise competent?