447
RFK Jr’s claim about Black people’s immune systems is ‘unscientific and terrifying’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
447 points (98.5% liked)
News
24403 readers
6863 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
How dare you come in here with your facts. These people need to be angry about scientific racism!
Next you're gonna tell me that because I have blue eyes that I am much more sensitive to bright lights than someone with darker colored eyes. You're just eye racist!
Where are the facts about Caucasian propensities for disease and genetic issues in the list? Partial points for the light skin point.
Incomplete facts. Science huh.
Anything to justify it.
Cystic Fibrosis was listed.
There are genetic diseases more common in each (previously isolated) population. It's a fact which can be used to target screenings in a way that minimizes residual risks.
Many things in the list are different for socioeconomic reasons as well as genetic reasons. That doesn't mean the genetic differences don't exist or that scientific racism is behind them.
Racism is when you treat individuals not according to their own characteristics, but the characteristics (correctly assessed or not) attributed to their race. But public health efforts are not about individuals and often need to use racial background to help provide the care most likely to succeed.
Personal genomics will help us move to more individualized medicine, but it's not ready or affordable enough to apply to every case at the moment.
And if you think the gaggle of idiots running the country right now (up to and including RFK Jr.) has any intent to make personal genomics affordable to anyone but themselves, I've got a fucking bridge to sell you.
I do not. I don't trust RFK Jr to do anything right except possibly by accident.
Just reinforcing the point that there are legitimate and non-racist uses of race information in medicine.
Edit: Keep in mind that the comment I replied too seemed to take issue with a list of conditions related to genetics that have different propensities in different races. There are racists like Kennedy on the one side and then there are idiots on the other who think that any credence given to nature over nurture is indicative of racism and could not possibly be backed by objective facts.