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November 18, 2004

A dose of political correctness

America’s race problem can often lead to absurd unintended consequences. Well-educated and urbane Americans always want it to appear that they are unaffected by the nation’s number one social malady. As a result they are meticulous about always appearing to be politically correct.

Recently a problem arose in the medical profession. Research on the effectiveness of a drug therapy for heart failure found that it was very effective for blacks while being only marginally useful for whites. It then became an ethical question as to whether a drug should be racially specific.

What a tempest in a teapot. It is well-established that there are some diseases that are genetic. Only Ashkenazi Jews and Cajuns are afflicted with Tay-Sachs disease. Only African Americans, Africans and some residents of the Middle East and the Indian sub-continental suffer from sickle cell anemia.

Also African American men have the highest rate of prostate cancer and death in the world. It is more than twice the rate for white men in the U.S. Studies indicate that the rate of infection among blacks is general in the male population and is not the result of low-income or inadequate medical care.

Research on DNA has established that the genetic code of different groups of people can render them susceptible to some physical afflictions and immune to others. The treatment of genetically induced medical conditions must proceed without reference to any of the racial stigma that humans might impose upon one another.

There is no valid politically correct justification to deny treatment for those in need of appropriate health care.

Make the votes count

There is good reason for the supporters of John Kerry for president to be suspicious of the validity of the vote count. The voting fiasco in Florida in 2000 raised an awareness across the country that vote tampering could indeed be a problem in the United States.

What caused concern in the recent election is that exit polls in key states had Kerry ahead, even though he finally would lose. CNN exit polls in Ohio showed Kerry beating Bush 53 percent to 47 percent among women. Male voters were voting for Kerry 51 percent to 49 percent. But Kerry lost the state 49 percent to 51 percent for Bush.

Then there would be reports about irregularities. For example, the polls in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio reported 4,258 votes for Bush and 260 for Kerry. However, only 638 ballots were cast.

After the embarrassment in Florida in the 2000 election, the networks were very contrite about the assumed failures of their system for exit polling. However, there are some who now assert that the exit polls were correct. But ballot rigging in some states caused the distortion.

Few want to challenge Bush’s victory but it should be clear to everyone that a more efficient voting system must be established in the United States. The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University has established that the voting systems in Illinois, Georgia, Texas and Florida lose a large number of votes because of spoiled ballots, enough to change the outcome of elections.

Democrats, Republicans and researchers must work diligently to establish an election system so that everyone’s vote counts.

 

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