Our clinical trials have the following options for Race: White, Black, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific, American Indian. White is used interchangeably with Caucasian.

For NIH funded studies you now have to ask the Latino/not question separately from the other questions because it is possible to say that you are/are not Latino and still give any of the other answers.

The percentage of people who answer "Other" goes up every year, as it should. There are very few Latinos or African-Americans who are not of mixed racial background, and Asian- and European-Americans also are increasingly intermarrying with each other and with other groups. What kind of a stupid classification system fails to recognize that?

Edit: Like Jesse said.

Is there an Uncanny Valley of sci-fi?

Damn, Ailleann. That was scary observant.

My understanding is that it has a vaguely negative connotation as in, "oy vey, my son is dating a shiksa!"

So if the son is dating a transexual is it, "oy vey, my son is dating a shiksa-bob"?

Alberto Fujimori ... shiksa-bob.

People will eventually get past all this crap. I need to believe this.

The percentage of people who answer "Other" goes up every year, as it should.

I am as white as white gets, but my dad is native american so I always mark "other".

I am "other" as Hell.

What difference does it make? On a census, it is like the "Are you here legally?" question.

The difference it makes depends on the survey. For my sister's work on the impact of AIDS on various populations, of course she needs to know which ones. Similarly for my mother's medical research.

I should know better than to argue with ita. However, I am brave. What difference does it make to the HIV virus, what box you check on a census?

What difference does it make to the HIV virus, what box you check on a census?

Disease spreads in different ways among different groups. Good luck trying to stem the tide in, say, West Africa the same way you approach it in Sweden.

It is the same shape of condom, on either continent.