[Race and racism in a medical context in the Netherlands]

From experiments by the Nazis in Germany, to the infamous American Tuskegee study, controversies surround racialized medical science and clinical practice. However, although 'race' is a social construct, disease patterns may cluster in groups with a common ethno-cultural ancestry. In this journal, Buckle and Achterbergh et al. discuss the use of race and ethnicity in a medical context in the Netherlands. Buckle puts forward the concept that 'race' is a social reality, and both authors discuss the use of 'ethnicity'. A comment on these papers states that the term 'race' is controversial and biologically invalid, and should not be used in medical practice in the Netherlands. A client's self-described ethnic origin or ancestry may be taken into account when relevant for diagnosis and treatment, without equating European ancestry with 'normalcy', as opposed to other ethnic groups. It is concluded that more research should be directed towards defining biomarkers that transcend racialized human categorization based on presumed external characteristics.