QUANTA

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Invest to diversify
Nature 471, 5–6 (03 March 2011) doi:10.1038/471005b 
Published online 02 March 2011 

Despite many federal initiatives, the number of US scientists from minority groups remains low.

Minorities and other marginalized groups have not always enjoyed the best relationship with science. In the 1930s, researchers from the US government started a series of experiments that recruited hundreds of African American men infected with syphilis, then left their disease untreated to study its natural progression. (The government did, however, provide free burial insurance.) More recently, American Indians from the Havasupai tribe sued Arizona State University in Tempe over claims that geneticists had collected and analysed blood samples from tribe members without obtaining proper consent. The two parties settled that suit last year. Indigenous peoples in other countries such as Australia also have historical reasons to be suspicious of mainstream scientists.


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Publisher and/or Author and/or Editor:__Andres Agostini ─ @Futuretronium at Twitter! Futuretronium Book at http://3.ly/rECc