Thorough Cancer Research Impossible Without Black / African Genes
Cancer Scientists Have Ignored African DNA in the Search for Cures
Charles Rotimi first realized the future was passing him by around 2005. The Human Genome Project had recently finished spelling out an entire set of human DNA. Following that breakthrough, scientists in six countries across the globe had begun collecting blood samples to find genes responsible for various conditions, including serious diseases, which could lead to treatments. And Rotimi, who was leading that collection effort in Africa, had the sick feeling that history was repeating itself.
He wasn’t concerned about himself so much as his homeland. In the past, African patients have had poor access to medical advances, even as scientists use them as research subjects. Rotimi worried that genetics might again exploit the 1 billion people n sub-Saharan Africa, ignoring their need for treatments for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and cancer. “The genomic revolution was going to fly over Africa,” he says, “and tomorrow’s medicine will not work for all.”
His concern was well founded. Over the next few years, scientists came out with a frenzy of discoveries about our DNA that could possibly lead to new treatments for diabetes, cancer, psychiatric illnesses and other serious diseases. But they were drawing from a small slice of the world: Nearly all of the published work was based on populations with European ancestry. By 2009, fewer than 1 percent of the several hundred genome investigations included Africans.
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POINT: Know your worth…does that require knowing pre-1492 African history?…from an African vs European perspective?
Suggested Solution: To know your history & learn your worth…listen to Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, the man who proved white ‘scholars’ wrong on who the 1st man on earth was, which culture, matriarchy or patriarchy is the 1st & oldest, proved that Egypt was Black, etc.
