Date: Tue Aug 27, 2002 2:58 am
Contents:
1. Race in Medicine
2. Slavery Today
3. Query Request
4. Received my books
5. Magen David
6. Anti-Semitism
7. New Books
1. Race in Medicine
NYTimes.com Article: Race Is Seen as
Real Guide to Track Roots of Disease
Race Is Seen as Real Guide to Track
Roots of Disease
July 30, 2002
By NICHOLAS WADE
Challenging the widely held view that
race is a
"biologically meaningless" concept,
a leading population
geneticist says that race is helpful
for understanding
ethnic differences in disease and response
to drugs.
The geneticist, Dr. Neil Risch of Stanford
University, says
that genetic differences have arisen
among people living on
different continents and that race,
referring to
geographically based ancestry, is a
valid way of
categorizing these differences.
Dr. Risch's position was prompted by
an editorial last year
in The New England Journal of Medicine
asserting that "
`race' is biologically meaningless,"
and one in Nature
Genetics warning of the "confusion
and potential harmful
effects of using `race' as a variable
in medical research."
Dr. Risch's assertion, in a paper in
the online journal
Genome Biology, comes as researchers
and physicians are
trying to interpret the DNA data streaming
from the Human
Genome Project and to make sense of
the fact that the
pattern of data differs among ethnic
groups.
All humans have the bulk of their genetic
heritage in
common and possess the same set of
genes. But because of
mutations, or changes in DNA, each
gene comes in several
slightly different versions, and some
of
them are more
common in one ethnic group than another.
These genetic
differences often have medical significance,
since some
occur among genes that affect susceptibility
to disease and
the response to drugs.
It has long been known that some diseases
are not evenly
distributed. For example, a mutation
that causes
hemochromatosis, a disorder of iron
metabolism, is rare or
absent among Indians and Chinese but
occurs in 7.5 percent
of Swedes. A common mutation that causes
sickle cell anemia
is prevalent among Africans and is
thought to have
originated among Bantu-speakers before
the Bantu expansion
2,000 years ago.
Lactose intolerance, the loss of the
ability to digest
lactose after weaning, is the default
condition of
humankind but among Northern Europeans
the ability is often
retained into adulthood. The reason
is a mutation that may
have been favored among early cattle
farmers.
The apparent correlation between race,
genetic data and
disease has prompted at least two schools
of thought among
biomedical researchers. One holds that
race is so poorly
defined that it is not a reliable biological
concept and
should be banished, if possible, from
scientific
vocabulary. This is the view espoused
by The New England
Journal of Medicine.
Many population geneticists, on the
other hand, say it is
essential to take race and ethnicity
into account to
understand each group's specific pattern
of disease and to
ensure that everyone shares equally
in the expected
benefits of genomic medicine.
Meanwhile a proposal for avoiding racial
labels, at least
for drug trials, has recently been
made by Dr. David
Goldstein, a population geneticist
at University College,
London. He has suggested that patients
be assigned to
different genetic groups by analyzing
their DNA. The
process gives much the same result
as asking people to
identify their ethnicity, but yields
a more accurate
division in terms of how people respond
to drugs, Dr.
Goldstein says. He adds that the expense
of the genetic
testing will be affordable in drug
trials.
In asserting that race is a valid concept
for medical
research, Dr. Risch has plunged into
an arena where many
fear to tread. He also takes issue
with Dr. Goldstein's
race-sidestepping proposal, saying
it will lead to
confusing results.
Race, as Dr. Risch describes it, has
arisen because of the
numerous small genetic differences
that have developed in
populations around the world. Many
studies, Dr. Risch
writes, have shown that these differences
cluster into five
major groups, which are simply the
world's major
continental areas.
The ancestral human population would
have contained within
it many genetic differences and alternative
gene forms
inherited from the predecessor species.
This shared pool of
differences still accounts for 85 percent
to 90 percent of
those seen in the global human population,
according to
many measures. The differences between
ethnic groups
account for the other 10 percent to
15 percent. This
well-known analysis, however, is based
on commonly
occurring versions of genes, and rare
versions of genes,
when measured, may show a greater tendency
to be specific
to different populations, Dr. Risch
said.
Dr. Risch believes that race, when
self-defined by
continent of ancestry, is a true reflection
of these
genetic differences, including those
important for
understanding disease. "There is great
validity in racial/
ethnic self-categorizations, both from
the research and
public policy points of view," he says.
Editors of both the journals criticized
by Dr. Risch
expressed respect for his views. Dr.
Robert Schwartz, the
deputy editor of The New England Journal
of Medicine and
the author of its editorial, said Dr.
Risch's article was
"a serious piece of work and merits
a lot of thought."
Dr. Bette Phimister, editor of Nature
Genetics, said that
"Risch's point that there is a high
and useful degree of
correlation between ethnicity/race
and genetic structure,
is well taken, and one with which we
agree."
Both editors also expressed support
for the proposal
advanced by Dr. Goldstein, that of
bypassing race by going
directly to the genetic markers in
each patient that might
correlate with drug response or disease.
Dr. Goldstein, too, said he agreed
with Dr. Risch that "the
geographic patterning of genetic variation
is real and has
medical implications and one does need
to take account of
it."
"Neil is arguing against some people
in the medical
community who say racial labels have
nothing to do with
drug response, and he is right," he
said.
But Dr. Goldstein says he believes
the genetic variation
can be studied directly, without invoking
race. In an
article last year in Nature Genetics,
he and colleagues
analyzed genetic markers in people
from eight ethnic
groups. When the people were regrouped
according to their
genetic markers, that proved a better
guide to drug
response than did their ethnic group,
Dr. Goldstein
reported.
Scientists often hunt for genes in laboratory
animals by
mutating them with radiation or chemicals.
No one would
think of inducing informative sets
of mutations in people,
but nature has already performed the
experiment by shaping
the human population into groups with
differing
susceptibilities to disease. This genetic
differentiation
among races is one that some gene hunters
would like to
exploit.
for full story see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/health/genetics/30RACE.html?ex=1029096747&ei=1\
&en=92ee81bfa1fbcde0
2. Slavery Today
Subject: Tallis on Sandall THE CULTURE
CULT
In April last year, the Etireno , with
a cargo of slave children en
route from Benin to Gabon, briefly
became the most infamous ship in
the world. Rumour had it that approximately
250 children, found to be
surplus to requirements, had been thrown
overboard. When this could
not be substantiated, the world's press
lost interest, thereby
missing the bigger and yet more
terrible picture: the orphans of
the Etireno were only a small part
of an estimated 200,000 children
sold annually into Africa's modern
slave trade. The authorities in
Benin tried to explain the episode
away as a West African custom in
which children are sent abroad to live
as household servants with
wealthy relatives. Benin's Foreign
Minister, Idji Kolawole,
remarked, "In our culture, we think
that it's always good for a
child to go from his parents' house,
to an uncle's or to a friend
abroad."
Another incident, a few months later,
gave the lie to this relaxed
attitude. The prolonged torture and
death of Victoria Climbié, sent
to London to improve her life chances
not to speak of widespread
evidence of sexual, physical and emotional
abuse of other children
sent away to live as unprotected mendicants
with wealthier families
leads one to question the use of "always"
in the Foreign Minister'
s statement. His other phrase, "in
our culture", was striking too.
Here and elsewhere these seemingly
unexceptionable words have a
strong intent: they are intended to
immunize the practice being
discussed against criticism.
for full story see:
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/this_week/story.asp?story_id=19513
3. Query Request
Quite a whille ago I quoted ancient
sources to the effect that the Romans
sold Jews as slaves into Egypt.
If anybody still has the source please
send it to me.
Yair Davidiy
4. Received my books
Hi Yair I received my books I ordered
thank you. I'm very excited to read
them. This weekend my wife, I and our
dog closed our business for Friday
and we are going up north to Lake Huron
camping. I am going to start
reading Lost Israelite Identity. Again
thank you so much for all your
research you are really doing a great
service to the world and I know your
message of Brit-Am is going to explode
soon and will reach the four corners
of the world where the Lost Israelis
are located. I personally once I have
educated myself and have a strong grasp
of scripture on the various
subjects concerning the LTI's will
be strongly pursuing our common goal of
reunification of Israel in anyway possible.
That is how passionate I feel
on the subject of the Lost Tribes of
Israel.
Rusty
5. Magen David
Question: Is the Magen David pagan?
Answer: We have spoken on this matter
several times in the past.
To my mind something should be considered
"pagan" unless it is clearly
recognizable as pagan, has a definite
pagan origin, and has no other
significance attached to it. According
to this the magen david is not pagan.
No-one seems to be sure what the origin
of the Star of David is.
In Hebrew it is called "Magen David"
meaning "Shield of David" and may not
represent a star at all.
It is a common geometric symbol found
in many cultures and could be
ascribed significance by different
groups for all kinds of reasons but this
in itself should not necessary disqualify
it.
The northern kingdom used a kind of
rosette as a symbol of royalty and so
did other ancient cultures in the area.
The magen david could have developed
from this.
OR in ancient Hebrew the name DAVID
could CONCEIVABLY (but we have no
proof) have been represented by two
"D" letters (dalet) whose sign was a
triangle that usually pointed to the
left but could be pointed in any
direction. The magen david is two
triangles superimposed on each other.
It therefore could be understod as an
ideogram for DAVID the king of Judah
and Israel.
Other explanations say that
David El Roi a Jewish leader in Kurdistan
adopted it as his symbol and it
spread from there to other Jewish communities.
The Christians in the Middle Ages forced
the Jews to wear the symbol to
distinguish them from their Gentile
neighbors
and the Jews later adopted it as "Jewish".
We suggested in "The Tribes" that the
magen david represented the order and
formation of the 12 tribes of Israel
around the Tabernacle and this
suggestion fits the description given
(in Numbers) quite well.
6. Anti-Semitism
I have begun reading up a bit concerning
the history of our "Identity" belief.
A few points worth noting are:
*The belief apparently existed amongst
Celtic and "Germanic"-speaking
peoples (such as the Goths) outside
of Germany.
In its modern form it began in Britain
as British Israel. There was always
an anti-semitic potential there but
it was not serious at first.
*Most of the early leading thinkers
and advocates were sympathetic towards
the Jews. Some of them were amongst
the earliest advocates of a Jewish
State supported by Britain.
*Some of the people who believed in
this idea were very important and did
help the Jews.
*Anti-semitic notions did creep in
later and have now become accepted
amongst British Israel in England and
Australia but not necessarily
elsewhere. Some elements in British
Israel in England are still positively
disposed towards us. British Israel
in Ulster on the whole has been
supportive in the past and we have
friends there, in Canada they are also
friendly.
In the USA the belief was adopted by
two main streams:
i. A fundamentalist element mainly
that existed from the beginning and was
later lead by followers of W.G. Armstrong
and offshoots of his group.
Mainly very positive people, very important
contributions in research and
propagation of the idea, some very
god publications. On the whole
pro-Jewish and pro-Israel.
ii. so called "Chrisitain Identity"
who in effect are Nazis, do great
damage, receive a lot of publicity.
Consist of perverts,
anti-semites, pagans, and in general
are servants of evil. They are the
enemy of the Hebrew peoples.
They are conscious or unconscious agents
of those working against people of
Israelite origin.
7. new books:
we are working on new books and upgrading
already published ones.
We hope to complete shortly:
a. A book mainly on Genesis, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy emphasizing proofs of
Brit-Am.
b. a book on Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
Ezekiel and evidence of identity.
c. A book on Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah,
Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbakuk,
Zephaniah, Haggai, Zeccariah, and Malachi.
The books are based on our regular
Biblical series that we have been
posting to the web with the emphasis
on proofs of Israelite origin.
In the books now in preparation, we
have included a lot of new material
derived from sources that hitherto
have not been made public.
One of the books is almost ready and
another is at an advanced stage.
We need financial support to continue
Brit-Am work in general and work on
the books and to publish the books
shortly. Brit-Am is under financial
pressure. We hope that by publishing
the books we may generate income to
continue
Brit-Am work. We ALSO wish to make
public information that should be in
the public domain and DOES serve as
PROOF
concerning the Hebrew origins of many
people in America and the west today.
The works are interesting and read
well. Please support us if you can.