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California's Proposition 54 - A Commentary

By Marisa Trevi?o, KERA 90.1 commentator

Dallas, TX – California's Proposition 54 stipulates state and local officials can't collect or use information regarding someone's race, ethnicity, color or national origin for the purpose of public education, public contracting, public employment or other government operations.

The mastermind behind Proposition 54 is a mild mannered man by the name of Ward Connerly. He also happens to be African American. But people are warned not to use that term in his presence. As Mr. Connerly sees it, race isn't real.

Well, in a society where skin color still segregates and languages other than English intimidate, race is very real and cannot be ignored. If we did ignore race, then we'd never have known a disproportionate number of people of color were being singled out for police stops and searches, or that children of color constitute the majority of school drop outs and teenage pregnancies. Nor would we know how much more difficult it was for minorities to get bank loans and home mortgages.

But there's an even more compelling reason for paying attention to race: medical genetics.

Neil Risch is a Stanford University population geneticist, and he argues the medical community should not be in such a hurry to whitewash folks. For too long, clinical drug trials were performed with few people of color as test subjects. The consequence has been a surprise to researchers when minorities have had unforeseen reactions to FDA approved drugs.

By not taking our differences into account, researchers miss important medical discoveries helping to explain why certain diseases or drug reactions are more prevalent among one ethnic group than another.

For example, according to a study co-authored by the National Medical Association, pain medications metabolize differently in East Asians than in Caucasians. Whereas two tablets of codeine may help Caucasian patients rest comfortably, the same dosage wouldn't bring any relief to East Asian pain sufferers.

A patient's ethnicity plays a role even in simple procedures such as placing a breathing tube down a patient's windpipe. Anesthesiologists realize black patients salivate more heavily than other patients, causing complications in the airway.

Overmedication can be a problem too. Doctors now know Latinos with schizophrenia don't need as much anti-psychotic medication as Caucasians to achieve the same drug levels in the bloodstream.

And the latest research published in the August issue of the Archives of Opthalmology reveals that a child's ethnicity determines the chances of developing common eye disorders.

Other circles would consider targeting these racial differences as politically incorrect, and probably referred to it as racial profiling.

There is even an ongoing debate in the medical community about using race as a variable in medical research.

However, unlike other situations unfairly targeting people of color because of their skin color or accent, racial profiling in medical matters must not be seen through colorblind eyes.

Especially, when it could be the difference between life and death.

 

Marisa Trevino is a writer from Rowlett.