The ethics of characterizing difference: guiding principles on using racial categories in human genetics

Sandra Soo-Jin Lee¹ , Joanna Mountain^2,3, Barbara Koenig⁴, Russ Altman⁵, Melissa Brown⁶, Albert Camarillo⁷, Luca Cavalli-Sforza³, Mildred Cho¹, Jennifer Eberhardt⁸, Marcus Feldman⁹, Richard Ford¹⁰, Henry Greely¹⁰, Roy King¹¹, Hazel Markus⁸, Debra Satz¹², Matthew Snipp¹³, Claude Steele⁸ and Peter Underhill³

¹Center for Biomedical Ethics and Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University, Welch Road, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA

²23 and Me, Inc., Bayshore Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA

³Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

⁴Program in Professionalism and Bioethics, Mayo Clinic, First St. SW Rochester, MN 55905, USA

⁵Departments of Bioengineering, Genetics and Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

⁶Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

⁷Department of History, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

⁸Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

⁹Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

¹⁰School of Law, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

¹¹Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

¹²Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

¹³Department of Sociology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA