Posed Aug. 11, 2008 — As the discussions wrapped up at the 17th Annual International AIDS Conference in Mexico City over the weekend, one thing became abundantly clear: We are ignoring a deadly and debilitating disease that affects African Americans more than any other ethnic American group. Dozens of US AIDS activists demonstrated at the AIDS conference Wednesday calling on White House candidates to commit to HIV prevention, as experts warned of growing US public indifference towards the disease. But, at the same time, the activist point out that complacency in America – and within our own communities – is leading to more and more Black deaths from AIDS. What will it take to keep HIV/AIDS on the front burner?

Read more »

Posted July 7, 2008 – Ladies, you’ve seen the commercials pumping up the One vaccine you should get to protect yourself from type of cervical cancer you get from HPV – Human Papilloma Virus. But this weekend, the vaccine was in the news for a different reason. There are reports that some teen girls who’d been vaccinated with the HPV vaccine Gardasil have suffered paralysis and other ailments. And, at least 10 young women have died since last September soon getting the vaccine, according to Food and Drug Administration records obtained by a private US watchdog group. Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that checks government accountability, said the total number of deaths in the US linked to Gardasil was “at least 18 and as many as 20.” But the group conceded it had no proof the vaccine caused the deaths. It said the FDA records, obtained under freedom-of-information laws, produced 40 serious reports, of which 27 were life threatening. There’s been as many as 2,300 complaints. But the documents do not show a causal link between Gardasil and patient reactions, the FDA says. FDA spokeswoman Kelly Riley said there was nothing in the reports to cause a review of the vaccine. “These adverse-reaction reports have not been analyzed,” she told U.S News & World Report. “If there’s a death after someone received a vaccine, and long after if they had a car crash, a bee sting … these would be filled out. It does not mean that Gardasil caused it.”

For some perspective, the vaccine is a relatively new drug that the government allowed Merck to fast-track to market with less than 2,000 human tests.  The reports of illnesses are true and not to be taken lightly. However, it’s the only vaccine available right now that fights HPV, genital Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), which is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections. The disease causes genital warts, but in many cases cause no other symptoms. Left untreated, though, it can lead to sterility or cervical cancer. By March, close to 20 million vaccine doses had been distributed worldwide. But since the beginning of the fight to get girls vaccinated for HPV across the country there’s been controversy about giving a vaccine to young girls who are not sexually active to ward off a virus that they may or may not get. From a historical perspective, people fought against the polio vaccine when it was first introduced. And they’ll probably fight the wide distribution of an HIV vaccine when it’s finally discovered. Whether you should give your teen daughter a vaccine or take it yourself is a decision not to be taken lightly. Right now, it is the only thing standing between millions of women and most of the common types of HPV that are linked to one of the most deadly forms of cancer. The fact is Black women suffer from way more STDs than the rest of America. Before deciding against being vaccinated against this common STD, talk to your doctors or other medical folks you trust instead of taking for granted the claims of a group that might be fighting this vaccine solely on the basis that at its root is a cancer caused by a sexually transmitted disease.

A consumer advocacy group is asking the government to prohibit the sale of the Ortho Evra birth-control patch, according to a story from the Associated Press.

The group, Public Citizen, said the patch is “a poor choice for women,” when it filed it’s petition with the Food and Drug Administration on May 8.

The problem is blood clots, according to the story. Although blood clots are a side effect of many estrogen products, studies have shown that women using Ortho Evra have a much higher risk of developing clots because the patch releases more estrogen into the body than pills to.

Public Citizen also charges that the patch is no more effective than birth control pills are when it comes to preventing pregnancies.

and the nay-sayers are getting louder, according to this article on www.nytimes.com (You might have to register to read the story.)

Four panelists The American College of Cardiology conference said Vytorin should the last resort for lowering cholesterol. They advised returning to a previous practice: the prescription of statins. The New England Journal of Medicine, one of the country’s most prestigious medical research publications, made a similar recommendation in an editorial, the New York Times story said.

There’s been lots of back and forth about Vytorin. The manufacturers say the drug is safe and effective, but researchers and physicians are saying its not. If you’re taking Vytorin, you owe it to yourself to investigate the controversy and speak to your doctor.

I wrote about Vytorin earlier. Check out the post from January 15.

A study conducted by a researcher from the Centers for Disease Control contains shocking news: one in four teenage girls has a sexually transmitted disease.

Gasping for air? Well, sit down. When it comes to African American girls, the situation is worse. Nearly half of African-American girls ages 14 to 19 had one of four diseases: chlamydia, human papillomavirus, genital herpes or trichomoniasis.

Chlamydia, the nation’s most common STD, can cause pelvic inflammatory disease which can lead to pain, infertility and ectopic pregnancy. Human papillomavirus can cause genital warts and cervical cancer. Herpes means a life of sporadic, painful episodes. Trichomoniasis is caused by parasites and produces a heavy, foul-smelling discharge.

I don’t apologize if the preceding paragraphs are too blunt or explicit. The occurrence of STDs among our young women means it’s time for tough, truthful talk about sex. Abstinence-only programs aren’t working. Our young people are sexually active, and it’s time our community dealt with it.

Does that mean I condone sex between teenagers? No. But sex is one thing; an STD is a whole, ‘nother other. And the rates of HIV/AIDS among African-American women should show us that our community needs to leave the platitudes behind and get wise about female sexuality.

We need to tell our young people the truth: intimacy is nothing to play with – not for boys or girls, not for men or women. If you’re sexually active, use a condom – for health’s sake.

I’m not finished with this. Watch for posts listing the symptoms of the four diseases listed above, treatments for them, and links to more information.

I’m going to get personal here: just the talk of Alzheimer’s disease starts my heart racing. I’d seen the effects of this ailment in the 1980’s, when a close friend’s mother developed it. Since then, I’ve commiserated with other friends when their parents and elders were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

But…. the disease is not part of the normal process of aging. And there is a difference between Alzheimer’s and the age-related memory loss that everyone experiences as the years progress.

I’m going to explore the differences in the next postings. African Americans need to get educated because we have high rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. All three are risk factors for Alzheimer’s. In fact, the Alzheimer’s Association calls the disease “an emerging public health crisis” in our community.

You know I’m big on self-education. Start learning about the disease by reading the report African Americans and Alzheimer’s disease on the Alzheimer’s Association website.

Researchers say a dramatic increase in the number of strokes among middle-aged women is another consequence of the nation’s obesity epidemic, the Associated Press reported today.

Data from the latest National Health and Nutrition Surveys, gathered from 1999 to 2004, showed two percent of women aged 35 to 54 reported having a stroke. In the previous survey, which was conducted from 1988 to 1994, only half a percent of respondents had the ailment.

Researchers point to obesity as the major factor because it was the only traditional risk condition that had changed enough to account for the increase in strokes.

That increase could have severe consequences for African Americans. Because of the incidence of high-blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes in our community, African Americans are twice as likely to die from stroke than are Whites.

For more information about stroke prevention, go to this page at the National Stroke Association website.

For another cautionary tale about over-the-counter medications for children, read this story in the (Cleveland, Ohio) Plain Dealer.

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control found that incorrectly using over-the-counter medications sends 7,000 children under the age of 11 to emergency rooms each year. Many of the overdoses occurred because the kids took the medicine on their own.

This is the latest piece of evidence against treating children’s colds with OTC remedies. If you’re still not convinced  think about this piece of advice from Dr. Lawrence Quang. He’s a pediatric emergency doctor and the medical director of the Greater Cleveland Poison Control Center.

“If you have (over-the-counter children’s cold remedies ), throw them away,” Quang told the newspaper reporter.

We’re in the midst of cold season now, when chills and wind bring coughs and sniffles that invariably hit children.

If your child is a victim, don’t head to the drug store. The Food and Drug Administration warns that children younger than 2 should not receive over-the-counter cough medicine. Even though the agency hasn’t decided whether medicine is safe for children aged 2 to 11, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Substitute a taste of honey.

Researchers found that doses of buckwheat honey worked as well as cough syrup when it came to easing children’s coughs and colds, according to an article in the December, 2007 issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Doses were small: a half-teaspoon for children aged 2 to 5, a teaspoon for children 5 to 11 and two teaspoons for children 12 and up. For more information about the study, stop by Dr. Alan Greene’s blog at the New York Times. (registration may be required.)

Physicians are finally realizing how much diversity matters when it comes to biomedical research. Take the randomized clinical trial, long considered the most dependable way of determining the effectiveness of a procedure or a medication.

White patients are more likely to be enrolled in the trials than are people of color, a group of researchers found. The team, headed by Dr. John Stewart, IV of Wake Forest University, said the lack of diversity can have serious consequences when it comes to treatments for diseases like breast or prostate cancer.

“Our ability to generalize the findings of surgical trials iis directly dependent on having equitable participation in trials by underrepresented group,” he told a reporter for the New York Times .

Correcting the racial imbalance in the patient pool is even more crucial when one considers how hard certain cancers hit the African-American community. For example, African-American men have the highest rate of prostate cancer in the world, according to the National Institutes of Health. Black men are also 2.5 times more likely to die from the disease than white men are.

It’s a known fact that the health care system misses or disses African Americans. If for that reason alone, preventative screenings and regular checkups are a necessity. Many diseases can successfully treated if they’re caught in the early stages.