As vantagens da miscigenação
domingo, março 19, 2006
Reproduzo, sem comentários, um pequeno texto aparecido no Citizens Informer, vol. 36, nº 1, Janeiro-Março 2005 (jornal do CofCC).
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Miscegenation - The Health Consequences
A report from a study conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, published in the November 2003 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, revealed a greater incidence of various health problems among the 90,000 children surveyed who identified themselves as mixed-race.
Now an Associated Press report from Jan. 31 focuses on a specific problem faced by mixed-race offspring: difficulty in finding suitable donors for bone marrow transplants due to biological differences in ethnicity. “Because bone marrow transplants usually are made with a relative or someone with the same racial or ethnic background as the patient, multiracial people rarely have success,” the article explains.
Whites have a 90% chance of finding a match.
Various reasons are cited for the difficulties encountered by multiracial persons, one of which is sheer variety of ethnic mixes; another is the greater tissue variation present in non-whites.
As one mother said of her son, who is in need of a transplant, “…he’s not a good candidate for a match … because my husband is Puerto Rican and I’m of northern European heritage.”
Various proposals have been discussed in an effort to alleviate these consequences, such as increasing participation of multiracial persons in clinical studies, or donor drives.
Meanwhile, we recur to a wise old adage: An Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure.
posted by Nacionalista @ 2:10 da manhã,
