Category: 04. March 4

Professor Projit Bihari Mukharji from the University of Pennsylvania began his talk on the bodily collectives with a present look at the Indian genome project. The purpose of this research is to determine biological differences within the Indian population. The ways in which they aim to conduct this research are very interesting and they have divided the population of India into communities. This began with people who are affiliated with the Hindu religious fold, making up 80% of the population of India, which is separated into four sociocultural castes and was a convenient way in which to start dividing the population. Eventually the researchers divided everyone into 4693 communities with in the country. The current push for research of this kind has stemmed from a long historical background of raciology, but recent understanding of the biology of race has led some to believe that medicine should be specialized according to race for it to be completely successful, and Muharji gave the example of Bidil a drug that is specifically made for African American’s with heart conditions.

As I mentioned before, there has been a long history of studying genetics throughout the population that extends far beyond the current genome project in India. However, much of the data that they have collected is outdated and while it can provide information historically the sets of data need further development in order to provide a comprehensive look into the entire population of India. Historically, the study of genetics starts with observation, but studying samples from a couple of people only shows something about that individual not the entire population of India, and even then, it can be difficult to obtain samples from people. Dr. Mukharji told stories about researchers trespassing in the cemeteries of tribal people and using their power with government officials to take the skeletons of recently deceased from their shallow graves. Although this seems morally wrong in every possible way, the researchers continued to do it in the name of science. In another case, researchers wanted to determine if Type B blood was more common in Indians, so they targeted an older Indian community and pretended to be practicing doctors in order to draw blood from the population and achieve a comprehensive sample. However, as previously mentioned, an individual’s blood sample does not represent a group or race, it is unique to that person alone, nor do Hindu samples represent all Indians. Scientists have argued how to break up the population for decades, and it seems that they still have not reached a universal conclusion.

At the end of the presentation someone asked about a national register of citizens and whether or not countries are moving in a direction where in order to gain citizenship, one must give their tissues to be a part of that comprehensive database. Although this would be a technocratic dream, my question is whether or not this is plausible? It seems that in the current state of our world citizenship is avoidable and therefore would we ever be able to have a comprehensive database of all people living in a given country?

Projit Bihari Mukharji’s lecture was all about how genetics affect race and the how Indian scientists have considered the dangers about using genetics to categorize people. He brought in many studies, surveys, and examples of how India has gotten their data- a few of them throughout history were significantly questionable ethics wise. Throughout this presentation, I personally found two things in this talk to resonate with me. 1) How genetics can affect racism. 2) The ethical issues regarding consent in genetics. To start, it is interesting to think about how genetic information can be interpreted both in science and more importantly society. In a sense, the material can be used to support racist principles. Years ago, I took Introduction to Anthropology and it within the course we spoke about how intelligence was measured with head size…different races had different measurements, thus some races were perceived to be overall smarter when compared to other races. This is an example of how genetics can be used in society to marginalize a complete race. Lastly, Dr. Mukharji’s lecture touched upon how the methods the IGVDB used to gather data in the genetics field reinforced the Indian caste system. This point pertains to the ethics of consent regarding genetics. What is allowed and how can people give consent when they are no longer living? Are relatives able to consent for those that cannot? Simply put, some sort of standard needs to be regulated regarding genetics and the ability to receive consent for data.

Continue reading “Is there unity in diversity?”

I truly enjoyed Professor Projit Bihari Mukharji’s lecture on Collecting Bodies, Bodily Collectives.  Determining the identity of human beings through acts of science and experimentation are nothing but fascinating to me. Professor Mukharji’s lecture brought me back to experiences I had as a child when I would watch CSI and Law & Order on TV and dream about being a detective working through autopsy reports and what not. Professor Mukharji’s stories were extremely enticing as events that have transpired within South Asia are few and far between when compared to myths in the United States. He illustrated how India has undergone a multitude of changes in which different surveys and statistics have been individually gathered. Beginning with the Survey of India in 1767, this process ended with the Anthropological Survey in 1946. This is intended for scientists to gather better results as he exclaims that good scientists must always isolate the specific samples they are interested in. Professor Mukharji used the example of a ‘fern scientist’ and highlighted the fact that no one fern scientist is capable of studying all of the ferns in the world; instead, they must concentrate their studies and narrow their research. That is what Professor Mukharji is attempting to do with his work and his studies. By exploring bodily traces, such as blood and bones, from a given area or community, scientists can collect data and conduct studies to produce new forms of identities located in the remote past or unforeseeable future.

Initially, I asked myself why we would want or even need to do this type of research in the first place. That said, in the question and answer portion of the lecture, Professor Mukharji emphasized that a short time ago, many of the samples and studies of genetic science were outdated and henceforth inaccurate. He explained how only 130 people study for the field of genetics, and although the field has expanded, small sample sizes and single trial experiments lead to inaccurate information. He offers the idea that learning more about genetics will not answer problems of race or genetic disorders/differences, but rather improve our general understanding of where we come from and who we come from. A full consensus will never be reached, and Professor Mukharji acknowledges this point repeatedly. In response to Professor Lijiang’s question about the morality of treating/studying humans post mortem, Professor Mukharji states that you must always be conscience when designing and conducting your study. On the other hand, organizing these studies is essential to our understanding of how the world works. We must keep working to expand our definition of life, where you come from, and why you are the way you are. Professor Mukharji acknowledges the fact that there is no such thing as data that is completely void of any racial or genetic assumptions. Henceforth, it is up to people like Professor Mukharji to conduct experiments and research that enables us to see past these assumptions and understand the world for what it truly is.

Projit Bihari Mukharji’s lecture on “Collecting Bodies, Bodily Collectives” explores how in India genetic research has been done to create a caste system between different socioeconomic groups. Countless studies have been done to disprove the idea of a single human genome and propagate a narrative of “unity in diversity”. In this lecture, Projit Mukharji touched on the Indian Genome Variation Initiative and their research concerning pools of genomic difference within India. The history of genome collection though is extremely controversial and included deception and theft. Dr. Mukharji provides us with some stories of scientists lying to patients, claiming to be treating them while just using them for their blood. Or scientists going into sacred graveyards and stealing corpses in the name of research. These methods are beyond unethical and made me want to look more into the history of unethical medical/ research practices done here in the United States.

Probably one of the most popularized examples of unethical medical malpractice is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The study involved around 600 black men; 399 with syphilis and 201 who did not have the disease. Researchers advertised the experiments as a “Free Blood Test; Free Treatment”, where the patients were promised free meals, free physicals, and free burial insurance. However, the real study was the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” The men never told they had syphilis and were never given treatment for it but were just examined until they were killed by the disease. There are also examples of drugs like BiDil, which is a drug targeted at African Americans with heart failure. Anatomically Black people have the same hearts as white people, but this drug is an example of how science is a tool to reinforce racism. The United States has a history of using Black Americans as the guinea pigs for their science experiments and though they claim the findings they gain from these unethical measures are worth it, I have to disagree. White people have constructed this idea of race and have since been using it to assert their superiority in the world and science is just one of the many tools used to do it.

After leaving this lecture, I was anxious because, with the expanding world of scientific innovation especially in biometrics, we as a population could be in danger due to the sinister history genomic science has when it comes to race.  With the growing collections of DNA by means of harmless activities of trying to trace your ancestry through things like 23 and me or Ancestry.com, I feel like many communities of color may be placed in compromising positions in the name of science.

During the questions and answers part of the discussion, one of the professors in the audiences asked about the examination of patients and the history of uninformed consent in the past and how that affects modern science. This question resonated with me because there are so many examples of research gained through nefarious practices and if it should still be used to this day. Dr. Mukharji’s response was that people should be aware of the history of medical practices but focus on doing something good with it. I understand this frame of thinking because the damage has been already been done so might as well let some good come from it. But there is still the need to learn and verify these findings that many accept without question.

In this discussion, we learned more about biological studies involving the human genome. This lecture was interesting to listen to because as an american studies major I have learned about studies of the human genome in the past and have looked at them with a critical eye before this lecture. Keeping that in mind, after this discussion I really feel like the majority of these studies and projects end up trying to state the same claim that we are all more similar to each other than we realize. I think in this lecture we learned that the opposite effect can be achieved through these studies however, because many people wanted to declare or claim their own independence despite any evidence proving similarities in the human genome.

I thought in light of this line of thinking, hearing about the efforts through Indian Genome Variation to unite people through this variation and I feel like that is exactly the initiative that needs to be taken by more people about this topic of research. As the lecture continued we learned from Dr. Mukharji that this effort itself might be repeating the same issues brought up by previous studies throughout history around this topic and might be causing further divergence from unity.

I thought the most startling part of the lecture to me was learning how some of the most famous case studies on this topic have such a small subject pool. I forget which study specifically Dr. Mukharji referenced but it was either Harvard or Princeton and was frequently referenced as one of the more credible studies. Yet this study only had a subject total of slightly over 100 which clearly would never be sufficient to cover statistics on such a large population of people. This is the main issue with these studies and is one that is not simple to fix because there is no easy way to test one million people’s DNA and compare all of their genomes.

I think this is all extremely intriguing to consider in relation to our current political and social climate surrounding facts and the media in general. Most of these studies don’t get much media coverage but some are definitely still included in student textbooks and referenced as if they are solidly grounded by evidence when in reality they don’t represent accurate data for an entire population. Especially considering how often people claim science is concrete and how facts are all we can trust in rely on in our modern age, it is appalling to think that studies such as these can be trusted as fact and taught in schools when they are sending such mixed messages and making us less unified as people. This has me thinking in conjunction with some of my other classes this year involving longer research projects and how I might be able to look into some of these studies throughout history and perhaps see the critical scholarly reactions to them throughout the years and compare that to the reactions we have to them in our contemporary age.

In this discussion, the general topic of discussion was talking about the elements that constitute what makes a race of people. And the takeaway message, revealed mainly in the questions and answer section, is that too much stock is often put into genetics when determining the race of people, and that often times genetics are treated like the “end all be all” when it comes to racial construction. When looking at the definition behind race, this idea becomes rather murky, due to the nebulous nature of the definition. Over the years there have been various definitions, some referring heavily to phylogenetics and DNA evidence, while others take an almost entirely social and anthropologic view, where DNA evidence is eschewed almost entirely. This is the central issue surrounding this topic, not that DNA evidence reigns supreme, it is the completely different use of definitions across disciplines.

For example, when looking on webster’s online dictionary, two different definitions of race appear. The first one reads: “a class or kind of people unified by shared interests, habits, or characteristics.” This is clearly the anthropological approach that emphasizes commonality of interests and social behaviors, while not referencing skin color, genetics, or any other visual evidence that typically biologists tend to use. The second definition reads: “an actually or potentially interbreeding group within a species also : a taxonomic category (such as a subspecies) representing such a group.” While this definition has its issues of its own, the general theme of it is to rely exclusively on phylogenetic evidence, as well as evidence of interbreeding. These two definitions listed right next to each other, defining the same word, represents a problem for biologists and anthropologists alike. While these two disciplines align on some issues, this is one that has yet to be solved in a meaningful way, and no real compromises have been made as far as marrying the two fields.

In conclusion, there really is no conclusion in many senses regarding this issue, and in the current climate surrounding race, this sort of debate could definitely ratchet up in the near future. The speaker today decided to take more of an anthropological perspective, based on the examples he used in the talk, and the responses that he gave in the question and answer section. His opinion, while not fully encompassing of both definitions, still cannot be considered right or wrong, because of the lack of progress associated with coming up with a concise and unifying definition of the term ‘race’.

Projit Mukharji’s talk entitled “Collecting Bodies, Bodily Collectives” explored the relationship between genome projects, the biologization of race, and the ethics/practices behind these projects. Much of Dr. Mukharji’s lecture focused on the coercion of indigenous Indian people. Mukharji identified the 4 major castes in Indian culture and briefly touched on the fact that there are 4, 693 different communities. Historically there’s been an attempt to categorize these communities based off of some biological factor (e.g. blood type & bones). The premise of the talk was interesting but, the very academic nature of it made certain parts feel inaccessible/challenging to fully comprehend. For this response, I will focus on the questions I have regarding science used to further a racist agenda.

Things like BiDil, a drug specifically targeted at African Americans with heart failure, capture the absurdity of much of the science used to justify racism. What differentiates the heart belonging to a white person from one belonging to a black person? Likely, nothing at all. The scariest part to me was that science like this persists today, in the status-quo. Largely, there’s a belief that science is true and factual. So when science is manipulated to serve a racist agenda, taking that as fact is much easier than using simply ideologies or beliefs. If individuals and groups are presented with seemingly credible, scientific findings I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to believe it. The question I found myself asking was, whose responsibility is it to stop (or at least inform the public about) questionable science like this- especially when it’s deeply entrenched in cultural norms? Do we have to perform racial experiments to disprove science like this?

While I can’t answer my own question, considering the ethics of the data collection used in some of the existing studies Dr. Mukharji mentioned was enraging & might be one entry point to highlighting the questionable practices employed. Indigenous groups were violated by scientists who blatantly stole and lied to community members. Whereas, wealthier Indian groups like the Hindus were exploited using more subtle persuasion. While white and Christian individuals were not asked to contribute any blood or bone samples. The groups behind these projects first exploited populations and communities and then went on to use that information to further erect boundaries and exacerbate social constructs. I think that the ethical implications here are extremely questionable- and brings serious doubt to the credibility of their experiments. Which again made me wonder how entire databases like the Indian Genome Variation Database can have such wide acceptance and support.

After the talk, an audience member asked about the connection of this racialization to population registries and creating an “ideal population”. Dr. Mukharji responded that yes there is a push for similar things in India. The widespread nature and entrenchment of these ideologies across science and the culture feel somewhat foreign to me despite similar studies based in eugenics in the United States. The deep cultural beliefs and biases seem to be major driving forces in the continuation of these scientific pursuits.