MSU scholar says medical recommendations should go beyond racePosted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive, United States on 2012-11-14 15:33Z by Steven |
MSU scholar says medical recommendations should go beyond race
Michigan State University News
2012-10-23
Andy McGlashen, Media Communications
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| Sean Valles, assistant professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Philosophy, says race-based medical advice is often misleading and harmful. Photo by G.L. Kohuth. |
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Medical organizations that make race-based recommendations are misleading some patients about health risks while reinforcing harmful notions about race, argues a Michigan State University professor in a new paper published in the journal Preventive Medicine.
While some racial groups are on average more prone to certain diseases than the general population, they contain “islands” of lower risk that medical professionals should acknowledge, said Sean Valles, assistant professor in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Philosophy…
…By glossing over the varying degrees of health risk within a racial group, medical recommendations imply that all members of each race are biologically the same as one another and different from others – a view that promotes prejudice and discrimination, according to Valles…
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