The Journal of the National Cancer Institute just published a new correspondence by Connie Mulligan and me about race, genes, and cancer. Our letter is one of five written in response to a high-profile article published in JNCI last summer about racial differences in early death from sex-specific cancers—breast, ovarian, and prostate.

When the report appeared, nearly every major media outlet ran a story claiming that researchers had uncovered new evidence of a genetic basis to racial inequalities in health. See William Saletan’s article in Slate or Paul Taylor’s article in The Globe and Mail for two particularly bold examples.

In our letter, Connie Mulligan and I identify five reasons why the researchers’ speculation about genetic factors—not to mention the media’s portrayal—is unfounded. The most basic problem is that the study did not include any genetic data. They also did not account for the wide range of social and environmental factors that other studies have identified as key to racial inequalities in cancer. We emphasize the need to understand how institutional and interpersonal racism shape human biology, including the risk of early death from certain types of cancer.

If you’re interested in these issues, you’ll want to read the other letters by Michael Montoya and Erin Kent; Katrina Trivers, Lynne Messer, and Jay Kaufman; James Dignam; and Philip Rosenberg and colleagues. Also see the response from two of the original authors, Joseph Unger and Kathy Albain.

View our letter here.