Using humans as guinea pigs in a study of what happens to the body when syphilis is left untreated borders on the viciousness of some of Nazi Germany's "human experiments" on innocent Jews.

Meanwhile, Satel goes on to point out that notwithstanding the DNA evidence of biological similarities, there are dramatic differences in how medicine views ethnic differences, and there lies the controversy which is one of the main themes of her article.

To wit, Canadian Eskimos have a "variant form of a liver enzyme" that causes the Eskimo to be vulnerable to tuberculosis bacteria; and African-American woman have a higher incidence of breast cancer prior to reaching 35 years of age than Caucasian women do. Yes, we're almost all the same but our bodies react very differently to disease. The other themes that come through Satel's research: worries about categorizing people based on ancestry notwithstanding, identifying a person's ethnicity...
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