The Guardian 12 September, 2007
Culture and Life
by Rob Gowland
Tall blokes and a can of worms
I see that an international research team of scientists has identified the first gene that affects a person’s height. According to the researchers, hundreds of genes are believed to be involved in determining whether a person will be tall or short, and they now confidently expect a "flood" of discoveries relating to the rest.
An article on the discovery, in The Sydney Morning Herald, identified only two members of the international team, Tim Frayling of the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter and Joel Hirschhorn of Harvard Medical School in the USA.
The researchers found that the gene in question certainly affects people’s stature — but it hardly makes giants: people who inherit one copy of the "tall" genetic variant are about half a centimeter taller than those without. People who inherit two copies are roughly a whole centimeter taller than people without the gene.
The research team’s discoveries confirm that, all other factors being equal, the normal variation in height between people is determined by genes.
However, it has been known for a good number of years that to at least some extent the sub-standard physique of the poor and the deprived was (and still is) a function of their environment: inadequate diet, lack of sunshine and the breathing of polluted air in the slums of industrial or mining towns.
Ruling class conservatives will doubtless try to use the genetic research team’s highly qualified conclusions to push the bourgeoisie’s position that the physiological effects of poverty are simply genetic and nothing to do with them.
I have mentioned before in these columns the curious phenomenon that was noted in the First World War: that when the young bush men from Australia met their English counterparts in the trenches of the Western Front or in the dust of Palestine, the Tommies had to literally look up to the taller Aussies (as they did to their officers) and consequently tended to also call the Aussie Diggers "Sir".
The parents or grandparents of those Diggers had come from the same grim cities and slums in Britain as the Tommies, but a generation or more of clean air and good food had done its work. In the absence of the environmental factors that stunted the growth of the unfortunate Tommies, the Diggers had been able to reach something closer to their genetic potential.
However, the ruling class had as little interest then as it has now in helping the masses to reach their genetic potential. It was sufficient that their workers were healthy enough physically to do the jobs the ruling class wanted doing.
Turning the "lower orders" into the kind of tall, handsome, well-muscled, clean-cut workers that featured on Soviet posters was never a ruling class aim!
Sydney Morning Herald columnist Alan Ramsey gave the Howard Government a radioactive serve in the edition of August 25-26. Ramsey quoted an exchange of correspondence between Roger Dunlop, a former doctor now in his 80s, and a Public Servant writing on behalf of the Prime Minister.
The correspondence was begun by Dunlop in June 2006. Its subject was the careless way the Australian Army stationed troops in Hiroshima from February 1946 for 18 months.
"There was no protective clothing, no routine orders as to the dangers of radioactivity, and no attempt to minimise exposure."
Dunlop’s letter to Howard asked him to "consider an investigation into DNA examination of the children and grandchildren" of Australian veterans of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces (BCOF) in Japan.
Dunlop was moved to make his request when he learned of "the high death rate of my fellow veterans" and the fact that "eighty percent had died of cancer or had contracted it".
In the circumstances one would think his a pretty reasonable request and one which could be investigated by competent medical and scientific authorities with a minimum of fuss and bother.
Howard’s office (but not Howard himself) answered, but only to tell Dunlop that they had passed his letter on to the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs "for attention". Passing the buck is, of course, a time honoured tradition among bourgeois politicians, especially when dealing with something that might just become contentious.
After all, what happens if they set up a genuine enquiry and it concludes that BCOF personnel were wantonly exposed to atomic radiation, and that their descendants’ health has been adversely affected? The government would have to accept some hefty compensation claims. But that would be just the tip of the iceberg.
What about the Australian military and scientific personnel who "observed" or helped carry out the British nuclear tests in Australia? What about all the Australians who helped to disseminate Agent Orange and other toxic defoliants in Vietnam?
And what about exposure to depleted uranium in Iraq, or to the other toxic chemicals and untested drugs used routinely during service in Iraq?
Because of the looming election, a hard-pressed Howard finally promised just the other week to set up a study into the long-term effects of Agent Orange on the health of veterans’ children. But don’t expect him to actually do it, even if he somehow won the election!
His friends in the White House would not be happy if he held an enquiry and proved what they have been steadfastly denying for so long: that Agent Orange causes cancer and horrific birth deformities.
No, Dr Dunlop presented Howard with a can of worms which Howard has no intention of opening.