There is no question that some population groups are differentially affected by certain genetically-based diseases, but what has that to do with the racial terms Caucasoid, Mongoloid, etc.? Ashkenazim are Jews whose ancestors come from Northern and Eastern Europe, and so would be considered Caucasian. That doesn't mean Tay-Sachs is a Caucasian disease. Sickle-cell trait appears in 25% of West Africans and 10% of African Americans but, since it also appears in "the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, and India", and the population of these regions is generally considered to be Caucasian, sickle-cell anemia would seem to not be a Caucasian disease. Since it appears in less than 1% of the population of South Africa, it would seem that it is likely more related to the incidence of malaria than to any racial characteristics...which is what the World Health Organization says.

"Hispanic", as noted above, refers to people from a particular linguistic background (the term was invented by several mid-level Federal bureaucrats, but that's another story), and has nothing at all to do with "race". Alberto Fujimori (Japanese descent), Hugo Chavez (Indian descent) and Néstor Kirchner (Swiss/Croatian descent) are all Hispanics.

There is only one race - that is the human race - and people in it are different based upon individual backgrounds. Research, medical or otherwise, should be based on population groups, not on some artificial division such as the three (or four - or five) "traditional" racial groupings.

Someone asked earlier if I thought that "merit" should be the only deciding factor in college admissions. You betcha, and in every other decision-making process. At the same time "should be" represents the ideal, and there are situations where historical reliance upon non-merit factors such as race and gender have created imbalances, and there needs to be a mechanism to correct these...and that is another topic for a different discussion.