like all the goofs here who say they would rather have a lifelong, and in many cases life-threatening blood disease instead of risking malaria that is typically survivable with full recovery;
1) people seldom, if ever, get to choose whether or not to have hemoglobin C
2) even being homozygous for hemoglobin C is usually asymptomatic - the folks with it usually never know they have it unless they happen to be tested for its presence
3) malaria is probably the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children in West Africa
4) homozygotes for HbC have 7% of the incidence of clinical malaria as AA homozygotes
5) a population that has bone marrow that knows how to make both HbA and HbC contains more "information" than an identical population that can only do HbA
6) you still haven't told us why West Africa is an "abnormal" environment as opposed to, say, Gotebo, Oklahoma.
[This message has been edited by Coragyps, 09-26-2003]
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