In an effort to resolve the long-standing dilemma of why people with different ethnicities face different health problems, the National Institutes of Health has founded a research center to investigate the link between health and race. The center will be housed at the National Human Genome Research Institute, a government organization based in Bethesda, Maryland, and directed by Charles N. Rotimi, a Nigerian-born medical doctor and research scientist who received his training here in the US.

Among the riddles that Rotimi hopes to resolve is why drugs used to treat hypertension and diabetes are substantially less effective in blacks than they are in whites.

But this isn't the only effort afoot.

A team of researchers at the University of Chicago conducted a study last year analyzing 9,000 genes in 180 people -- half of whom were white, half from Nigeria.

According to the BBC, the team found major racial differences in 5% of those genes, meaning that medications designed to combat diseases or infections that afflict those genes may affect only one ethnic group. Or they might affect each ethnic group differently, and with varying degrees of success.

It's a good thing that Dr. Rotimi, the University of Chicago team, and others are finally getting to the bottom of something that probably should have been studied long ago. You might say this merely reflects one of those subtle forms of racism that will become more apparent with time, causing future generations to shake their heads in dismay over the ignorance of their forebears.