Welcome back to The Marian Flaxman Network Podcast. On today's episode, a conversation with author and researcher, Dr. Ian Myles, MD, MPH. Dr. Myles runs a lab at NIH where he investigates the link between environmental contaminants, the skin microbiome, and eczema. He is a trained allergist and immunologist, who also has a fascination with the nervous system, and during this conversation he details many of the ways that those two systems connect and overlap. Additionally, he discusses the many issues that he sees with the field of population genetics research. This type of research has become a favorite of the media, who splash headlines that seem to connect genetics with all sorts of attributes, from intellect to food preferences. However, this type of research often lacks the basic scientific controls expected of all other research, and shades uncomfortably close to racist and eugenicist tropes about genetic pre-determinism. In this conversation, Marian and Dr. Myles discuss his book, Gattaca Has Fallen, dive into some especially troubling examples of this type of "research", and highlight the ethical issues with funding this field.
For more information on Dr Ian Myles, visit https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/ian-myles-md-mph
To purchase his book, Gattaca Has Fallen, go to https://amzn.to/44Nafhe
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Connect with Marian on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/marian-flaxman/
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