I checked with some biologists before saying the following: this study assumes race is biological, bases its results on self-reported race, ignores socioeconomic factors, effectively checking all the “we did a race science” boxes https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/1334872138579324932

Even if we trusted haplotype/population science, you’d need to check the haplotypes of the people in the study. They did not. That’s why the fact that they used self-reported race is extremely relevant. Self-reported race tells you nothing about haplotypes.

I checked with a couple of experts, at least one of whom is ok with being named — @HeyDrWilson, who pointed out that people are not lab mice who start with the same conditions. People start with unequal conditions.

The other biologist I checked in with was @ThePurplePage who reminded us of this study warning us to be careful even with the haplotype/population science https://www.genome.gov/10001683/ethical-issues-in-developing-a-haplotype-map-with-socially-defined-populations

I’ve been aware of the thread I screenshot below all day and I’m not RTing it until she adds that race science is also bad science and it doesn’t matter if the rest of the science was good or not because their big headline is RACE SCIENCE so please stop tweeting it at me

More on things you think tell you about race but don’t necessarily https://twitter.com/ibjiyongi/status/1335424346433744897

I am seeing that a lot of POC are taking the study at face value because it reinforces legitimate fears about medical science not serving us and that shows that racist science is so dangerous and reporting on it uncritically probably kills people

If you want to have a conversation about why the vaccine might work differently, populations where heart disease and high blood pressure are more prevalent — *WHICH IS ALWAYS FOR SOCIAL REASONS* — need to be well-represented/sampled in your vaccine testing population.

Sampling and diversity are important not because different groups are fundamentally biologically distinct but because we experience commonalities due to living under white supremacist heterocispatriarchy which, uh, leads to disparate health outcomes

Big big news: melanin is a completely fascinating molecule and it has essentially nothing to do with your immune system (except for the UV blocking, which is great)

Race is org’d around who had certain types of melanin 500 years ago and who ancestrally identifies with them now

Race is also organized around some other things but that’s the first order summary. If you want the rest, read my book. Or read the brilliant @DorothyERoberts: https://bookshop.org/books/fatal-invention-how-science-politics-and-big-business-re-create-race-in-the-twenty-first-century/9781595588340