Human geneticists apologize for past involvement in eugenics and scientific racism | Science

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The American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) today apologized for the involvement of some of its early leaders in the eugenics movement, as well as the group’s failure to recognize and oppose other harms and past injustices in the field of genetics.

The apology stems from a year-long ASHG project that resulted in a 27-page report documenting instances of injustice. They range from ASHG leaders who have supported forced sterilization to silence the organization when genetics has been used to justify discrimination against black people. The results are “painful” but need to be widely shared, says Brendan Lee, a pediatrician and geneticist at Baylor College of Medicine and president of the ASHG, which has some 8,000 members. “How do you build trust if you don’t express remorse and speak out about what really happened inappropriately in the past?”

“It’s been a long time coming,” adds Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of an expert panel that helped guide the report. “And very necessary.”

Like many groups and institutions, the ASHG was galvanized to expand its diversity and inclusion efforts by the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a black man by a Minnesota police officer, and the subsequent racial reckoning in the United States. ASHG hired an outside contractor to investigate its 75-year history. The resulting report – also informed by Tishkoff and 12 other human geneticists, historians, clinician-researchers, social scientists and equity specialists – found that up to nine ASHG presidents have served on the board. directors or presidents of the American Eugenics Society since its inception. founding in 1926 until 1972. And several former presidents supported both voluntary and compulsory eugenic sterilizations at some point in their careers.

And while the ASHG apparently did not directly aid or promote the eugenics movement, the panel found no evidence that it ever took a strong stance against membership or researchers who promoted eugenics ideals. It was not until the early 1990s that the ASHG issued statements opposing theories of eugenics.

“I hadn’t realized how much a number of former presidents and very respected people in terms of contributions to human genetics…believed in this eugenics ideology,” Tishkoff says.

The ASHG also remained silent when genetics was misused to justify social harm in the 1960s and 1970s. For example, some scientists (non-geneticists) pushed the idea that black people were intellectually inferior due to of their genetics or allowed a misunderstanding of the genetic nature of sickle cell disease to generate discrimination against black people, according to the report.

The report also identified instances where the ASHG failed to respond in a timely manner to projects that were unethical or failed to protect the genetic information of Indigenous peoples. He specifically cites two efforts in the 1990s: the Human Genome Diversity Project, an ambitious attempt to study the genes of more than 50 populations around the world, and Arizona State University’s Diabetes Project, which used the information genetics of members of the Havasupai tribe in research projects without their consent.

The investigation revealed that some people within the ASHG spoke out against these injustices and repeatedly urged the organization to take a stand. He also mentions how the field of genetics and the ASHG have recently spoken out against similar injustices and become more inclusive. The report is published today on the ASHG website and in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Vence Bonham, social scientist and acting deputy director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, applauded the report and the ASHG leadership’s apology. “They really try to articulate some of the challenges and issues that the field has had,” he says. “It’s part of their responsibility to continue to make efforts to diversify the field to address these issues so they don’t reoccur.”

Erik Peterson, a science historian at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, calls the report a “great first step” toward acknowledging past injustices, but says the ASHG needs to do more, like push to include this history in all undergraduate and graduate students. genetic programs in the country.

Tichkoff agrees. “I wish I had something like that to read” in graduate school, she says. “We are not taught [about] he.”

One of the immediate actions the ASHG plans to take is to suspend the nomination of its awards after former scientists, given the problematic history of several of them. The society’s most prestigious award, for example, is named after William Allen, a prominent geneticist who promoted the sterilization of individuals with “undesirable traits”, according to the report. Beyond that, the ASHG says it will continue to promote diversity in the area of ​​genetics, which according to a survey by the company last year is 67% white.

ASHG joins other societies and organizations that have recently recognized their role in promoting social injustice and racism. The AAAS (which publishes Science) acknowledged in 2021 that the journal “played a disgraceful and notable role” in the scientific acceptance of eugenics in the United States. Other institutions, such as the Carnegie Institution for Science and University College London, have also apologized for their involvement in eugenics. And the American Psychological Association has apologized for encouraging, perpetrating and failing to address racism.

“You need to recognize, address and understand this history in order to move forward and change things and do better in the future,” says Tishkoff.

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