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Sue delurks to post the following:
 
A few days ago someone made an interesting posting about people with
celiac disease being a "subspecies" of the Caucasian race--probably due
to the relatively high incidence of this disease among Europeans.
 
I'd like to point out that not everyone on this group is European, nor is
everyone here of European descent.  People from a variety of "races" have
celiac disease.  Unfortunately, terms like "race" as used to describe
people aren't very scientific; in addition to describing populations
that tend  to mate among each other (as someone already pointed out),
they also have served as classifications with social implications--and not
all of these implications are neutral.
 
One of those non-neutral implications is related to access to medical
care--particularly for Americans (don't let my e-mail address fool
you--I'm an American temporarily living in the UK).  American doctors are
no worse than any others in the world, but the health care system in
which they work does not provide access to everyone in the
nation--particularly for those uninsured/underinsured people trying to
find answers to chronic problems.  And people who are not Caucasian are
heavily represented among those who are uninsured/underinsured in the
States.
 
>From the first time I got sick at age  14 until August of last year, it
took 24 years, and skipping from doc to  doc, for me to even convince a
doctor to take my condition as seriously  as I did.  I'm 38 years old,
with good insurance, and an aggressive  stance toward health care
providers and insurance  companies.  Imagine
what I would have gone through if I had no insurance, or if I had had it,
but it had been cancelled (as often happens to Americans these days...).
 
Sue