FYROM Genetic Propaganda against Greek Nation – Part 4

The Arnaiz-Villena controversy
An often-cited study from 2001 by the Spanish lab of the Antonio Arnaiz-Villena et al. (among them were and Slavamcedonian genetists from FYROM-SkopjeUniversity) [27] which maps 28 world population based on the HLA DRB1 locus, concluded that “the reason why Greeks did not show a close relatedness with all the other Mediterraneans analyzed was their genetic relationship with sub-Saharan ethnic groups now residing in Ethiopia, Sudan, and West Africa (Burkina Faso).” Later that year, the same data was used in another study by the same author published in a different journal. [28] This second paper dealt specifically with the relatedness of Palestinians and Israelis and was subsequently “deleted from the scientific literature” because, according to the editor-in-chief Nicole Suciu-Foca, it “confounded the elegant analysis of the historic basis of the people of the Mediterranean Basin with a political viewpoint representing only one side of a complex political and historical issue”. [29]

Erica Klarreich’s report on the controversy further quotes Suciu-Foca as saying that the reaction against the paper was so severe that “We would have had mass resignations and the journal would have been destroyed if this paper were allowed to remain.” [30] The controversy was further reported on in numerous locations including The Observer. [31]

Shortly after this, three respected geneticists, Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Alberto Piazza and Neil Risch, argued that the scientific limitations of Arnaiz-Villena’s methodology.[32] They stated that “Using results from the analysis of a single marker, particularly one likely to have undergone selection, for the purpose of reconstructing genealogies is unreliable and unacceptable practice in population genetics.”, making specific allusion to the findings on Greeks (among others) as “anomalous results, which contradict history, geography, anthropology and all prior population-genetic studies of these groups.“

No multiple-marker analysis has ever duplicated Arnaiz-Villena’s results. In The History and Geography of Human Genes (Princeton, 1994), Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza grouped Greeks with other European and Mediterranean populations based on 120 loci (view MDS plot [33]). Then, Ayub et al. 2003[ [34] did the same thing using 182 loci (view dendrogram [35]).

Another study was conducted in 2004 at Skopje’s University of Ss. Kiril and Metodij, using high-resolution typing of HLA-DRB1 according to Arnaiz-Villena’s methodology. Contrary to his earlier conclusion, however, no sub-Saharan admixture was detected in the Greek sample. [36]

A 2006 study by Tunisian scientists again asserted the relatedness of the Greeks to sub-Saharans by calculating genetic distances at the DRB1 locus, [37] the same marker used in the controversial Arnaiz-Villena paper. Both papers interpreted those results as suggesting an admixture occurred due to the displacement of Egyptian-Ethiopic people during the Pharaonic period. However, the Tunisian scientists failed to analyze any new Greek genetic material, relying solely on the data contained in the earlier Arnaiz-Villena paper, and no Greek laboratory contributed to their research. [37]

The credibility of Arnaiz-Villena was seriously damaged after he was suspended without pay from the Hospital Doce de Octubre in Madrid, where he heads the department of immunology and molecular biology, after being charged with embezzlement of funds. [38] In addition to this charge, Dr Arnaiz-Villena is facing allegations of “moral harassment” at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he chairs a research and teaching immunology unit. All charges against Prof Arnaiz-Villena were proven to be fabricated and false and he was reinstated in his post(see Wikipedia, link to “Antonio Arnaiz-Villena”) [39]

Sources:

1. [25] Browning, R. Medieval and Modern Greek, Cambridge University Press, 1983.
2. [26] J.M.Roberts, The New Penguin History of the World, The Greeks, Fifth Edition, 2007, p.p.171-172
3. [27] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11260506?dopt=Abstract
4. [28] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11543891?dopt=Abstract
5. [29] Human Immunology, Vol: 62, Issue: 10, October, 2001, pp1063
6. [30] Nature 414, 382 (22 November 2001) doi:10.1038/35106696.
7. [31] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/25/medicalscience.genetics
8. [32] Nature 414, 382 (22 November 2001) doi:10.1038/35106696.
9. [33] http://www.goodrumj.com/PC-HGHG.jpg
10. [34] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14533184?dopt=Abstract
11. [35] http://dienekes.angeltowns.net/articles/greekadna/mfig001.gif
12. [36] http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118742265/abstract
13. [37] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16473309&query_hl=25&itool=pubmed_docsum
14. [38] http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7339/695
15. [39] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Arnaiz-Villena

Source: Modern Macedonian history

1. – FYROM Genetic Propaganda against Greek Nation – Part 1 (intro)
2. – FYROM Genetic Propaganda against Greek Nation – Part 2
3. – FYROM Genetic Propaganda against Greek Nation – Part 3
4. – FYROM Genetic Propaganda against Greek Nation – Part 4
5. – FYROM Genetic Propaganda against Greek Nation – Part 5 (Epilogue)