From Richard Mellish, London, UK
You report that race-based adjustments to diagnostic criteria reflect bad science and should be abolished (17 July, p 16). Fair enough. But we also often read that this or that medical procedure hasn’t been sufficiently validated because the clinical trials involved a limited cohort, for example mostly white people. We also sometimes read that a certain sector of the population is more susceptible than the rest of us to a particular ailment.
Are there differences or not? If there are, and “race” is the wrong distinction, we need to know what the right one is.
