Sigh. May this be the end of what could, yes, become derailment:
First of all, we need to say that being of a certain race is not what causes somebody to have the gene variant for Tay-Sachs, or the gene variant for sickle cell. It’s having ancestors who were in a geographic region where those things either occurred by chance or were selected for, as in the sickle cell case. Although many people in the U.S. think sickle cell is a disease of black people, that’s not necessarily true. Sickle cell is found in people in Greece, the island of Orchomenos, in particular, has very high carrier rates for sickle cell. There are also high carrier rates among people on the Arabian peninsula and people in India. There are parts of India where sickle cell carrier rate is as high as it is anywhere in Africa.
