Several recent medical studies have revealed that differences between blacks and whites in the risk and aggressiveness of prostate and breast cancer are linked to genetic differences between the races. Variations in susceptibility to both cancers are affected by different sequences on the Vitamin D receptor, or VDR, gene; one of the different versions, or polymorphisms is, as reported in the August 15 issue of Cancer Research, associated with significantly higher and more aggressive rates of prostate cancer among black men, while specific versions of the same gene are associated with doubled incidence of breast cancer among white women, according to a study in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention (August 2004). Meanwhile, the journal Cancer reveals that the racial differences in the occurrence of mutations in a tumor suppressing gene, p53, are connected with difference in the aggressiveness of breast cancer between white and black women. The benefits of such racially anchored investigations in fighting cancer and other ills are obvious. Less obvious is why, although racial differences in many aspects of medicine are increasingly reported in the science and medical sections of newspapers, the news, sports, entertainment, and “style” pages of the press continue to maintain that biological races either don’t exist, or are based on a few cosmetic differences.
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