November 12, 2004
Speaker Biographies
Jon H. Entine is an adjunct fellow at AEI and scholar-in-residence at Miami University (Ohio). He writes on genetics, economics, and public policy for academic and popular publications and writes a regular column, “The Ethical Edge,” for the London magazine Ethical Corporation. His books include Let Them Eat Precaution: Behind the Agricultural Biotechnology Debate (AEI Press, 2004); Abraham’s Children: How Genetics Is Unlocking the Hidden History of the Bible and the Shared Ancestry of Jews and Christians (Spring 2005); and Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk about It (PublicAffairs, 2000). He previously wrote and produced news reports and documentaries for ABC, CBS, and NBC News.
Keith C. Ferdinand is the medical director and professor of clinical pharmacology at Xavier University in New Orleans and former chairman of American Black Cardiologists. Dr. Ferdinand has authored many journal articles on medical issues and has served on numerous committees examining the nexus of medicine and population. He is also an investigator and steering committee member on the African-American Heart Failure Trial (A-HeFT), the first study designed to examine whether a unique nitric oxide enhanced heart drug BiDil, made by NitroMed, can help African-American heart failure patients survive longer with a better quality of life.
William B. Lawson, professor and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Howard University School of Medicine, has authored more than eighty-five publications on severe mental illness and its relationship to psychopharmacology, substance abuse, and racial and ethnic issues. He is currently directing a $6.5 million study through the National Institute of Mental Health on mood and anxiety disorders in African Americans and other ethnic minorities. He is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a member of the American College of Psychiatry on the Scientific Advisory Boards of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. He previously served as chair of the Section of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences of the National Medical Association and as past president of the Black Psychiatrists of America. He has received numerous honors, including the Jeanne Spurlock Award from the American Psychiatric Association, the E. Y. Williams Clinical Scholar of Distinction Award from the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Section of the National Medical Association, and a Multicultural Workplace Award from the Veterans Administration for his outstanding contributions to the advancement of diversity and multicultural understanding.
Pamela Sankar is an Assistant Professor of Bioethics in the Department of Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also a Fellow at the Center for Bioethics and a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Dr. Sankar's research interests have included genetics and race, ethical and cultural implications of genetic research, medical privacy and confidentiality, and research ethics. Her current research project, “Beyond Stigma: Interpreting Genetic Difference,” funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute, examines the relationship between genetic conditions, racial and ethnic identities, and stigma. Her most recent publication, “Genetic Research and Health Disparities,” published last June in the Journal of the American Medical Association, raised provocative questions about the potential overemphasis on genetics as a major explanatory factor in health disparities.
Vincent Sarich, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of California–Berkeley, was a faculty member at Berkeley from 1966 through 1994, when he took emeritus status. He is a pioneer of molecular phylogenetics. It was for his doctoral dissertation that Mr. Sarich worked out the details of human origin that were to bring him into conflict with the fossil experts of the time. Relying in part on proteins, the differences among that provided a new framework of relationships among the species involved, he showed that the human line went through various stages on the way to bipedalism. By the mid-1980s, his view had become the acknowledged scientific doctrine. His later research expanded the logic of evolutionary biology to human nature and social policy. He has written widely on the reality of human differences and language origins. He has authored hundreds of scientific articles and numerous books, his most recent being Race: The Reality of Human Differences (Westview Press, 2004), coauthored with Frank Miele. Mr. Sarich is the 2004 recipient of the Kistler Prize, awarded by the Foundation for the Future to recognize original work investigating the implications of genetics for human society.
Sally Satel, M.D. is a resident scholar at AEI and staff psychiatrist at the Oasis Clinic in Washington, D.C. She serves on the advisory committee of the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and previously served on the Fowler Commission that investigated sexual misconduct at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Dr. Satel has written widely in academic journals on psychiatry and addiction medicine and has published articles on cultural aspects of medicine and science in many international publications. She is author of PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine (Basic Books, 2001) and Drug Treatment: The Case for Coercion (AEI Press, 1999) and coauthor, with Christina Hoff Sommers, of the forthcoming book, One Nation under Therapy (St. Martin’s Press, spring 2005). She has written numerous articles on race and medicine, including “I am a Racially Profiling Doctor” in New York Times, May 5, 2002.
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