Genotyping the Future: Scientists' Expectations about Race/Ethnicity after BiDil

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Some key publications from this research include: Smart A. Tutton R. Ashcroft R. Martin P. Ellison G. T. H. , “Can Science Alone Improve the Measurement and Communication of Race and Ethnicity in Genetic Research? Exploring the Strategies Proposed by Nature Genetics,” BioSocieties 1, no. 3 (2006): 307–318; Tutton R. , “Opening the White Box: Exploring Categories of Whiteness in UK Genetic Databases,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30, no. 4 (2007): 557–569; Ellison G. T. H. Smart A. Tutton R. Outram S. M. Ashcroft R. Martin P. , “Racial Categories in Medicine: A Failure of Evidence-Based Practice?” Public Library of Science Medicine 4, no. 9 (2007): 1434–1436; Martin P. Ashcroft R. Ellison G. T. H. Smart A. Tutton R. , Reviving ‘Racial Medicine’? The Use of Race/Ethnicity in Genetics and Biomedical Research, and the Implications for Science and Healthcare (London: St. George's/University of London, 2007).

Several interviewees introduced the topic of the FDA approval of BiDil in the course of their interviews and, as the interviewer, Richard Tutton took the opportunity to ask several interviewees what if any issues this had raised for them as scientists in the field of pharmacogenetics. The impact of the BiDil approval on medical practice in the U.K. and how British-based scientists and doctors frame the issues that it raises are interesting questions. Lying outside the focus of the current paper, this will be a concern of future research.

To preserve the anonymity of interviewees we use these codes (PGx01, etc.) for the benefit of the reader to distinguish between our different respondents.

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See Jorde Wooding , supra note 18.