Troy Duster

The case for strategic international alliances to harness nutritional genomics for public and personal health

Nutrigenomics is the study of how constituents of the diet interact with genes, and their products, to alter phenotype and, conversely, how genes and their products metabolise these constituents into nutrients, antinutrients, and bioactive compounds. Results from molecular and genetic epidemiological studies indicate that dietary unbalance can alter gene-nutrient interactions in ways that increase the risk of developing chronic disease. The interplay of human genetic variation and environmental factors will make identifying causative genes and nutrients a formidable, but not intractable, challenge. We provide specific recommendations for how to best meet this challenge and discuss the need for new methodologies and the use of comprehensive analyses of nutrient-genotype interactions involving large and diverse populations. The objective of the present paper is to stimulate discourse and collaboration among nutrigenomic researchers and stakeholders, a process that will lead to an increase in global health and wellness by reducing health disparities in developed and developing countries.

Race and Genetics Controversies in Biomedical, Behavioral, and Forensic Sciences

Among biomedical scientists, there is a great deal of controversy over the nature of race, the relevance of racial categories for research, and the proper methods of using racial variables. This article argues that researchers and scholars should avoid a binary-type argument, in which the question is whether to use race always or never. Researchers should instead focus on developing standards for when and how to use racial variables. The article then discusses 1 context, criminology, in which the use of racial variables in behavioral genetics research could be particularly problematic. If genetic studies of criminalized behavior use forensic DNA databanks or forensic genetic profiles, they will be confounded by the many racial biases of the law enforcement and penal system.

Comparative Perspectives and Competing Explanations: Taking on the Newly Configured Reductionist Challenge to Sociology

Sociology faces three important interrelated challenges in the coming decades. The first will be the increasing authority of reductionist science for which partial evidence is found in the strikingly imbalanced allocation of research funding for “causes” of wide-ranging problems—from disparities in health and educational achievement to explanations of alcoholism and violence. The second is the attendant expansion of databases on markers and processes “inside the body.” Directly but inversely related is the third challenge: new evidence that the release of already collected data sets is blocked and data collection on social and economic forces is reduced. These challenges can be confronted and addressed directly if sociologists emulate an earlier generation of sociological researchers and turn greater attention to an analysis of data collection at the site of reductionist knowledge production. This includes, for example, close scrutiny of new computer technologies assisting several DNA identification claims. It is insufficient to simply assert the arbitrariness of the “social construction” of these claims. Instead, the architecture of that construction must be demonstrated. Unless that is done, competing explanations (from various disciplines) will have far greater significance on public policy and on the particular disciplines status with public and private funding sources.

Introduction: Race, Genetics, and Disease Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence

This special issue of Studies of Science highlights ongoing debates concerning race, genomics, and disease. Some of the papers examine the production of disease etiology research, pharmaceutical drug response, or DNA genealogy tests, while others analyze institutional consequences and challenges arising from contemporary biomedicine, such as medical education and recruiting subjects for clinical research. In this introduction, we outline major issues that provide background and foreground for the specific studies that follow, and end with a brief description of the papers. First, we briefly outline the debates around contemporary genetics research on race, ancestry, population, and disease. Second, we describe genomics and disease research projects on the genetics of populations that provide the ground on which the past debates have played, as well as introduce very recent projects that may change the tenor of future debates. We discuss why some scientists argue that their research does not biologize race, while others argue that their findings do demonstrate racial differences. Finally, we relate these complex genomic sciences and their biopolitical debates to relevant STS themes.This special issue of Studies of Science highlights ongoing debates concerning race, genomics, and disease. Some of the papers examine the production of disease etiology research, pharmaceutical drug response, or DNA genealogy tests, while others analyze institutional consequences and challenges arising from contemporary biomedicine, such as medical education and recruiting subjects for clinical research. In this introduction, we outline major issues that provide background and foreground for the specific studies that follow, and end with a brief description of the papers. First, we briefly outline the debates around contemporary genetics research on race, ancestry, population, and disease. Second, we describe genomics and disease research projects on the genetics of populations that provide the ground on which the past debates have played, as well as introduce very recent projects that may change the tenor of future debates. We discuss why some scientists argue that their research does not biologize race, while others argue that their findings do demonstrate racial differences. Finally, we relate these complex genomic sciences and their biopolitical debates to relevant STS themes.

Crime, Youth Unemployment, and the Black Urban Underclass

There is now a wealth of data demonstrating a strong relationship (in the United States, at least) between unemployment and contact with the criminal justice system. Black youth are disproportionately represented in both categories. Until the current period, most youth simply “matured” out of a life of crime. However, we are witnessing a new development of a deep bifurcation of the social structure and a corresponding development of a possible permanent “underclass.” Our previous assumptions about the life cycle, the market economy, and employment prospects must be reconceptualized if we are to address this concern with any success. In particular, programs of “crime reduction” must address the structural transformations that have so altered the unemployment differences between Black and White youth.

The Illusive Gold Standard in Genetic Ancestry Testing

New regulations on disclosure, authority, and responsibility would shape how genetic ancestry tests are used. Genetic ancestry testing is being applied in areas as diverse as forensics, genealogical research, immigration control, and biomedical research (1–3). Use of ancestry as a potential risk factor for disease is entrenched in clinical decision-making (4), so it is not surprising that techniques to determine genetic ancestry are increasingly deployed to identify genetic variants associated with disease and drug response (5). Recently, direct-to-consumer (DTC) personal genomics companies have used ancestry information to calculate individual risk profiles for a range of diseases and traits.

Clines Without Classes: How to Make Sense of Human Variation

This article examines Shiao, Bode, Beyer, and Selvig’s (2012) arguments in their article “The Genomic Challenge to the Social Construction of Race” and finds that their claims are based on fundamentally flawed interpretations of current genetic research. We discuss current genomic and genetic knowledge about human biological variation to demonstrate why and how Shiao et al.’s recommendations for future sociological studies and social policy, based on their inadequate understanding of genomic methods and evidence, are similarly flawed and will lead sociology astray.

Explaining Differential Trust of DNA Forensic Technology: Grounded Assessment or Inexplicable Paranoia?

In the spring of 2005, the Portuguese government passed legislation paving the way for all residents to contribute their DNA to a national database to be used for medical and forensic purposes. There was no significant opposition. In sharp contrast, the United States will experience a contentious debate with strong opposition from many groups if and when such a law is proposed. Some of the reasons have to do with a history of sharply different experiences with, and trust of, the criminal justice system.

Graduate Education at Berkeley.

The Berkeley Department of Sociology has a distinctive training program that encourages the student to pursue an independent course of inquiry. While clearly still within the U.S. orbit, when arrayed along a continuum, the program leans more toward the European than the American tradition of postgraduate education. The Berkeley doctoral student substantially creates his or her own mix and is also most likely the principal architect of the research design and the sole collector of primary data for the dissertation. This article briefly explains the history and describes the current program.

The Labelling Approach to Deviance.

Editors note. In the 1970s Professor Nicholas Hobbs directed a comprehensive study on child classification while Provost at Vanderbilt University in the USA. Though neglected in recent years his 1975 edited text, ‘Issues in the Classification of Children’, remains a relevant and important source of thinking about categorisation. Given the current policy interest in categories of special educational need it seems appropriate to reconsider some of these ideas. The following article originally appeared as Chapter 4 from Volume One of the Hobbs text. It is reprinted here with the kind permission of the Hobbs family. The American spellings and style in this article have been altered for consistency with house style, as has the format of the references list.