ABSTRACT
Race has an unsettled status in contemporary medicine. Genetic interpretations of race are undergoing something of a renaissance as a result of the proliferation of large-scale genomic studies of human populations. Meanwhile, examinations of health and disease patterns among populations of self-identifi ed Whites, American Indians, etc. reveal abundant evidence of disparities. Still, it remains unclear whether these are good enough reasons to use race concepts in medicine, given race’s roots in antiquated biology and its long history of abusive uses (e.g., justifying slavery). This has inspired a debate. At two poles of the race-in-medicine debate are eliminativism and conservationism. Eliminativists see race’s problems as being suffi cient grounds to eject race from biomedicine. Conservationists see race’s usefulness as being suffi cient to justify its continued use in biomedicine. There is a broad spectrum of nuanced positions between these two poles. This chapter reviews the current status of the race-inmedicine debate and the related philosophy of medicine literature.
