A reader's response to James Falls' 'Racism still alive today'
This can be considered a correction to James Falls’ column from Monday, “Racism still alive today.”
Falls makes some claims about genetics that I, as a neuroscience/biomedical sciences double major with a specialization in molecular genetics, would like to correct.
Falls discusses the CCR5 delta 2+ gene at length and implicates research behind the gene as driving the development of HIV and AIDS.
There is no CCR5 delta 2+ gene. The gene Falls is referring to is the CCR5 delta 32+ gene. The (+) denotes the normal form of the gene.
There is a mutant form of the gene that confers very high resistance to HIV. Approximately 5 to 14 percent of European Americans possess this mutation, while the mutation is incredibly rare in African-Americans and Asian-Americans.
If there was a “Secret Virus Program,” it must have been very secretive. The link between the CCR5 mutation and HIV was not discovered until 1995.
If the U.S. government truly developed AIDS to kill individuals with the CCR5 delta 32+ gene, then they planned to kill 90 percent of white Americans along with all of the black Americans.
