"Julio Frenk, former Minister of Health in México and supporter of the so called "Mexican Genome Project" -25 million dollars- is presently a colleague of Steven Rose, apologist of a new kind of weapons against specific genomes or DNA, pertaining to certain human groups; they are also known as ethnic or genetic weapons. Inadvertently, high Mexican government echelons have probably been a part of this type of weapons development..." (1)

The booklet in Spanish "¿ARMAS ÉTNICAS CONTRA LOS MEXICANOS...?" free to be downloaded from www.cienciaysociedad.blogspot.com discusses this topic in detail; it particularly focuses on the historical and racist background of animosities against Amerindians in general and Mexicans in particular. For the analysis the booklet is divided into six sections:

1) From genes and ethnics: something very personal,
2) After 1492: encounter between "savage" and "civilized" ones,
3) The first ethnic weapons: since Cortés to Amherst.
4) In the USA: ¿"melting pot" to "minorities" to "genetic cleansing"?
5) The genome of Mexicans ¿ without an "author's copyright"?,
6) More on the "Barbarians" from the south or... the north.

SECTION ONE starts by discussing the genetic mixture -"mestizos"- carried by the majority of Mexicans and the inexistence of a "purely Mexican genome", despite the pejorative social use of the plain term "Indian"; truly, this last term is derived from the dozens or more of Amerindian aborigines inheritance carried in the genome of present day Mexican populations.

SECTION TWO of the text sends the reader back to the first decades after the invasion of the American continent by Europeans in 1492, specifically regarding what are present day Caribbean and Mesoamerican regions that include México; this section also examines the breakage of the Christian-European "Natural Order" belief -not accounting for any "New World" inhabitants- and how it gave way to an ethnic clash with Amerindians and a long lasting debate on what the term "civilized" really means. Running counter to the racist perspectives of the incoming Europeans, we remind the reader that the indigenous cultures of America had achieved a high degree of cultural development except in military technology. Centuries of plunder of "New World", while equating natives with "savages", gave Europe enormous amounts of richness -and hygiene- tantamount to allowing the upsurge of capitalism in the "Old World". The causes behind the relative easiness with which a numerically inferior group of European invaders, like Cortes in the north, and Pizarro in the south, overwhelmed large populations and enormous amounts of land in America, are also discussed in detail, largely pointing to their advantage in military technology and the diffusion of previously unknown infectious diseases in the New World, like smallpox.

SECTION THREE analyses the consequences for the newborn Republic of Mexico derived from the USA 19th century conservative "Manifest Destiny" project, sustained mainly on racist beliefs. The acquisition by force of 54 % of the Mexican Republic land then, allowed the American Union to integrate an immense territory -equivalent to all of Europe- expanding its population towards the Far West by an enormous immigration process of "Caucasians"; consequently, in the second part of the 19th century the local aboriginal populations of Indians and Mexicans were either pushed back into "Reservations" or simply ignored by the selective "melting pot". Recent USA political and military actions against Mexicans -like the possible development of the ethnic weapons- should not come as a surprise, especially after reviewing the history of Mexicans staying north of the new border after 1847, when their rights began to be trampled by European squatters whose influence extends to the immigrant ancestors of today's neo conservative, racist, politicians like Reagan, Schwarzenegger and others.

SECTION FOUR of the booklet examines the transit of the American Union utopia, behind the lure of the "melting pot", that attracted millions of immigrants, to the present day perspective of "minorities" and their selective exclusion by "race". In today's new political corridors, Mexicans and Indians have had to fight hard for their rights, precisely against the above mentioned conservative and racist prejudices of descendants from those immigrants which originally did not even own the land.

SECTIONS FIVE and SIX analyze the hypothetical development of ethnic weapons focused on altering or damaging specific portions of the genome (gene, DNA) of any group -like Mexicans in this case-. The potential development of this kind of weapons -not due in the short term- is however a possibility, inextricably linked to possible "therapeutic" alteration of genomes for the benefit of patients suffering certain inherited diseases. The linkage between both possibilities is very much like the production of bio weapons with microbial pathogens that is, to a certain extent, similar to the production processes of microbial vaccines... The committed defense of the citizen's right to genome privacy -whether individual or societal- by the well informed and democratic NGO's in the USA, is also compared with the scenario in México, beyond the problem of potential ethnic weapons development. The weak support of science by present day government in México and the political ignorance of these topics at various levels of society, are also compared with the relative strength of science in USA and the actions of politically courageous USA Non Governmental Organisms.