Hungarian Sequencing Company Vets DNA For 'Gypsy Or Jew' Genes

ananyo writes "Hungary's Medical Research Council (ETT), which advises the government on health policy, has asked public prosecutors to investigate a genetic-diagnostic company that certified that a member of parliament did not have Roma or Jewish heritage. The MP in question is a member of the far-right Jobbik party, which won 17% of the votes in the general election of April 2010. He apparently requested the certificate from the firm Nagy Gén Diagnostic and Research. The company produced the document in September 2010, a few weeks before local elections. Nagy Gén scanned 18 positions in the MP's genome for variants that it says are characteristic of Roma and Jewish ethnic groups; its report concludes that Roma and Jewish ancestry can be ruled out." Adds ananyo: "The test is of-course nonsense, and notions of 'racial purity' have long been discredited." Just when you think the world is too modern for such things, modernity gets hijacked by flim-flam.

Comments

Nonsense?

[ShakaUVM]

>>Adds anonyo: "The test is of-course nonsense, and notions of 'racial purity' have long been discredited."

These are two different claims. One is that the test is nonsense, the other is that racial purity has long been discredited.

It's quite possible for both the genetic test to be valid, and to not *care* about racial purity.

While notions of race are tied up in all sorts of political correct nonsense and/or racist stereotyping, the simple fact of the matter is that there is a certain nexus of genes that are associated with what we commonly call race, and no amount of politically correct handwaving will make the science go away. Things like sickle cell anemia are associated with people of African descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle-cell_disease#Genetics), as is Tay-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_genetics_of_Jewish_people), high rates of adult lactase enzymes in people of Northern European descent, low rates of alcohol dehydrogenase in several Asian groups, and so forth.

Long story short, while the concept of race is socially constructed (what is considered "white" has changed significantly over the last 100 years), the labels that we do use for race can be backed up by genetic testing (by looking for clusters of genes associated with a race), and so tests like this *are* scientifically valid, even though ethically suspicious.

Re:Nonsense?

[betterunixthanunix]

It's quite possible for both the genetic test to be valid

Judaism is not encoded in anyone's DNA. People convert to Judaism all the time, and people convert away from Judaism to other religions all the time. My great-grandfather was a blond-haired, blue-eyed German who was raised by Catholic parents, who fell in love with my great-grandmother, converted to Judaism, and immigrated to America. Unless you are one of those people who thinks that converts are not really "Jews" (which is not a position that even the most hard-core ultra-orthodox Jewish movements [openly] accept), you cannot claim that genetic tests can reveal whether or not someone is Jewish.

A second issue with the tests is that there are several genetically distinct Jewish populations (hint: this is because genetics has more to do with geography than with religion). The Ethiopian Jews have a very different genetic "fingerprint" than European or Middle-Eastern Jews, and I am just going to go out on a limb and guess that the test performed on this politician did not include genetic markers from Ethiopia. I similarly doubt that genetic markers from Central Asia populations were included, or from controversial communities like the Lemba. Not all Jews have white skin, black hair, or prominent noses, and not all Jews have European DNA.

Crapola

[MightyMartian]

Considering the rather complex history of invasions and migrations through Hungary, I can't even imagine what one would qualify as a pure Hungarian. We're not talking about largely homogeneous populations like Iceland or Norway, we're talking about a country that has been the stomping ground from everyone from Central Asians to Germans to Mediterranean types. Read a history of that region. The idea that there is any kind of true full blooded "Hungarian" is daft.

Re:Crapola

[Mindcontrolled]

Ah, you see, the beauty of the racist fuckwit approach is that you do not have to define "true full blooded Hungarian". You only need to define single factors as "un-Hungarian" or "un-$country_of_your_choice", so that you can persecute at your heart's content. When you done with one group, you switch to the next. Keeps the population on its toes, you see?

Also, you employed reason while looking at racist crap. Never works, trust me on that.

Re:But..

[cayenne8]

Yeah, I was wondering the same question about prosecution, then read:

The ETTâ(TM)s secretary, JÃzsef Mandl, chair of medical chemistry at the Semmelweis University in Budapest, says that the certificate is âoeprofessionally wrong, ethically unacceptable â" and illegalâ. The council discussed the issue on 7 June and concluded that the genetic test violates the 2008 Law on Genetics, which allows such testing only for health purposes.

I think the larger question would be, why in the world would there be a law in finding out anything you want pertaining to your own genes??? They ARE your genes aren't they?

I suppose this guy could claim he was trying to screen himself for something like Tay-Sachs disease or something else genetically related to being Jewish...

But still....kinda hard to see a law like this in existance...shouldn't you be able to test yourself for whatever reason you wish?

Re:Maybe not Gypsy or Jew...

[X0563511]

Only if by "racist" you don't mean "white person who says anything bad about someone who's not white" and consider it fairly.

Re:Political agenda here?

[Hatta]

There must genetic markers defining any racial group that physically differs.

You'd think so, but it's not actually the case. e.g. Any two black Africans are no more likely to have common DNA than any black African and a white European. Sure, they're both going to have higher levels of enzymes that synthesize melanin, but that doesn't tell you anything you couldn't determine by looking at them. Race is an false concept invented out of ignorance and tribalism.

Re:ananyo is bullshit

[WaywardGeek]

It's part of us. I would be interested to know if white people's blond hair, blue eyes, and large noses have Neanderthal origins. After all, they lived in cold climates far longer than modern humans.

The issues from TFA shed light on a the ethical complexity of genetics. Personally, I want a copy of my genome. I have some specific health related reasons I want it, but it would be cool to do things with it, like find out roughly what percentage Native American I am (I'm at least 1/32nd Cherokee), if that's even possible. Where have my mitochondria evolved most recently? Do I have the cheating gene?

Hungary has it wrong on two counts. First, they outlawed extracting genetic information except for health reasons. That's got to put a real damper on genetic research, and the Libertarian in me is crying foul. It's my genes, and I should be free to do what I want with them. Second, they're going after the genetics lab over this dumb law, rather than going after the MP for racist behavior. Let's hope we have more success in the US in drafting legislation to protect peoples right to genetic privacy, while giving people full access to data about themselves, and promoting genetic research.

Please don't

[INowRegretThesePosts]

If good gives up, evil prevails.