Risch Weighs In on African American Smoking Risk

Neil Risch, director of UCSF's Institute of Human Genetics, comments in the January 26, 2006, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine on the challenges and implications of teasing apart genetic differences among ethnic groups that may affect both their vulnerability to disease and the type of treatment they receive. Risch's comments appear in response to a separate article appearing in the same issue. Authors of the article report that African American men who smoke are more at risk for lung cancer than are white or Latino male smokers. Risch's editorial, "Dissecting Racial and Ethnic Differences," clarifies both the importance and the difficulty of such research. He acknowledges that the issue of discussing genetic differences linked to ethnic differences is culturally and politically loaded, but reviews a growing number of studies that support the importance of such research. In part, he says, "Denying the existence of racial or ethnic differences in gene frequencies, some of which may contribute to disease or treatment response, is unlikely to benefit minority populations." Links: Dissecting Racial and Ethnic Differences