Ask the Scholars

Interviews from 2003

Question 10

Are sickle cell and Tay-Sachs racial diseases?

You say that sickle cell isn't a racial disease. Are you denying that this and diseases such as Tay-Sachs are genetic in origin or that there are clear racial differences in their rates of occurrence?

Answers:

Pilar Ossorio

Microbiologist and Bioethicist

First of all, we need to say that being of a certain race is not what causes somebody to have the gene variant for Tay-Sachs, or the gene variant for sickle cell. It's having ancestors who were in a geographic region where those things either occurred by chance or were selected for, as in the sickle cell case. Although many people in the U.S. think sickle cell is a disease of black people, that's not necessarily true. Sickle cell is found in people in Greece, the island of Orchomenos, in...

Jonathan Marks

Molecular Anthropologist

I think it is also a little perverse to define sickle cell anemia as a black disease, when 11 out of 12 African Americans have nothing to do with sickle cell disease. And the other thing, when you talk about Tay-Sachs, bear in mind that Ashkenazi Jews are not in anyone's definition in modern America, a race.

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