Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas

structure, which was designed around obtaining individual consent to
participation in the study rather than community consent, as is highly
important in many Indigenous groups (28).
In response to concerns raised by tribes regarding consent, the HGDP’s
North American Committee developed the Model Ethical Protocol for
Collecting DNA Samples (1997), which provided a series of rules that all
research activities in North America were required to follow. On its surface,
this protocol was a good articulation of how genetics research should be
conducted in marginalized communities. Among other recommendations
for ensuring privacy of participants, returning benefits to participating
communities, governing commercial use of samples, and combatting
racism, the protocol required community consent and a justification for why
researchers wished to include their samples in the HGDP. This protocol also
required researchers to “explain both why they concluded consent was
appropriate at the levels they chose and why any particular entity was
considered a culturally appropriate authority” (29).
By the time the Model Protocol was published, however, the HGDP’s
reputation among Indigenous authorities was severely damaged; it was even
labeled a “Vampire Project” by the World Council of Indigenous Peoples
(1993), and the name stuck.
In the end, none of the Indigenous populations in the United States
chose to participate in the project, and to this day the HGDP is viewed as a
cautionary tale by many tribal leaders (30).
Some Indigenous scientists view the landscape of existing research
protections, like the Model Ethical protocol and Memoranda of Agreements
between communities and universities as ineffectual, with little or no ability
to punish researchers who violate them.
Subsequent efforts to characterize genetic diversity within Native
American populations that followed have been viewed with concern, as is
reflected by the very few Indigenous communities who have participated in
them.
Research that has caused harm to Indigenous communities in the
Americas (and elsewhere) has poisoned efforts to understand their histories
using genetics. As of this writing, there are very few publicly available
genomes from contemporary Indigenous North Americans, and even fewer
from ancient North Americans that have been sequenced enough to