There has been criticism of associating disorders with race. For example, in the United States sickle cell is typically associated with black people, but this trait is also found in people of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Indian ancestry.<ref>[http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/posters/chromosome/sca.shtml sickle cell prevalence ]</ref> The sickle cell trait offers some resistance to [[malaria]]. In regions where malaria is present sickle cell has been [[Balancing selection|positively selected]] and consequently the proportion of people with it is greater. Therefore, it has been argued that sickle cell should not be associated with a particular race, but rather with having ancestors who lived in a malaria-prone region. Africans living in areas where there is no malaria, such as the East African highlands, have prevalence of sickle cell as low as parts of Northern Europe. | There has been criticism of associating disorders with race. For example, in the United States sickle cell is typically associated with black people, but this trait is also found in people of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern or Indian ancestry.<ref>[http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/posters/chromosome/sca.shtml sickle cell prevalence ]</ref> The sickle cell trait offers some resistance to [[malaria]]. In regions where malaria is present sickle cell has been [[Balancing selection|positively selected]] and consequently the proportion of people with it is greater. Therefore, it has been argued that sickle cell should not be associated with a particular race, but rather with having ancestors who lived in a malaria-prone region. Africans living in areas where there is no malaria, such as the East African highlands, have prevalence of sickle cell as low as parts of Northern Europe. |