Posted Nov. 20, 2008 – Smoking hits African Americans hard. So, today – Great American Smokeout Day  — is one more chance for us to do what we can to fight back. This event,  sponsored by the American Cancer Society, gives smokers one day a year to focus on putting  the cigarette butts out and not lighting up if only for one day. The hope is that that one smoke-free day will turn into two days, and then three, and so on until finally the smoker quit. But anyone who has ever lit up a cigarette knows it ain’t that easy. African Americans suffer disproportionately from many chronic diseases associated with smoking. Compared to Whites, African Americans are at increased risk for lung cancer even though they smoke about the same amount, according the U.S. Department of Health. In 2006, about 22.6 percent of Black American adults smoked cigarettes compared to 21.8 percent of Whites. But African American men were 37 percent more likely than Whites to develop lung cancer, says the report.  Black women tend to smoke less than White women but the two groups have similar lung cancer rates.  But, there is good news.

Read more »

Posted Nov. 17, 2008 – Posted Nov. 17, 2008 – If you’re stuffing down mega doses of Vitamin C or E in an effort to prevent cancer, don’t bother. While you’ve probably heard over the years that taking high doses of these nutrients help ward off cancer, there’s new evidence that that’s not the case; they simply don’t work that way. Vitamin C and E pills did not help prevent cancer in men who participated in a large Harvard-affiliated study, which has implications for the rest of us. Nor, did they work to fight heart disease, the researchers said. However, the good news is that when vitamin C and E were absorbed as part of your diet, there were some positive benefits.

Read more »

Both were part of a Susan G. Komen for the Cure mission.
Posted Oct. 30, 2008 - Actress Gabrielle Union and Malaak Rock, wife of actor-comedian Chris Rock, said their trip to Ghana as part of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s mission, was transformative. According to Komen reps, the trip was designed to help reduce the rate of breast cancer among women in the African country. Both women, who do a bunch of work in the States to help young African American women understand their risk for breast cancer, are to be commended for reaching out to Ghana’s cancer surviors, who are often chastised for having the disease.

Read more »

Celebrities talk about their experiences with breast cancerCelebrities such as Queen Latifah, Halle Berry and Nas are all speaking out about breast cancer. Black women don’t get breast cancer more often than Whites, but when they do they die from it more often, health experts say. At BET.com, actors, singers and other news makers share their experiences with the deadly disease. See what they have to say at BET.com/Body & Soul.     

Posed Oct. 1, 2008 – As we embark on another Breast Cancer Awareness Month, there’s at least some good news to report. There can be life, apparently a high quality life, after breast cancer treatment, a new survivors report says. Women who had a lumpectomy and radiation to combat breast cancer have an overall quality of life several years after treatment that’s about the same as for other adult American women, say researchers at Philadelphia’s Fox Chase Cancer Center.

Read more »

Posted Sept. 8, 2008 – The stogie-chomping Michael Jordan, a basketball legend and entrepreneur, has smoked himself into a controversy. His enjoyment of  cigars is no secret. But now, after  recent photos of Jordan on TMZ.com showed up with Jordan puffing away on a cigar at a celebrity softball game, the  American Cancer Society put Jordan in their sights.

Read more »

Posted July 26, 2008 – There’s new evidence that breast self exams don’t lengthen the life of a breast cancer patient. But what the report doesn’t say is that a lot of women, including my own mother and CBS Morning Show host Robin Roberts have detected cancerous lumps in their breast as a result of the procedure.

Read more »

Posted July 17, 2008 – It really takes some guts to come forward with a disease, linked to drug use and exposure to tainted blood. So, I applaud Natalie Cole’s announcement earlier this week that she’s being treated for Hepatitis C, which attacks your  liver and causes a number of side effects such as fatigue, muscle aches and dehydration. It’s not uncommon, health experts say, for the disease to cause problems years after the initial exposure. And doctors like Cole’s illness to her past drug use. As you know, the Grammy-award winning singer battled addiction drug addiction decades ago and may have contracted the disease then. Other ways of being exposed to the infection include blood transfusion, organ transplant, kidney dialysis and sex. The infection often shows no symptoms, but once established, a chronic infection can cause liver scaring or cancer. The African American Council on Liver Awareness has been concerned over the increase in the number of Black folks with Hep C. The seriousness of hepatitis C is compounded by the fact that African Americans tend to get the most resistant strain of the virus, and treatment is not always effective. The group is attempting to get more Black people into trials, and educate people about the disease. If you want more information, call the AACLA at 1.888.436.HEP C (4372) or go here for a fact sheet. And, in the meantime, please send your prayers to Natalie.

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.

Posted June 18, 2008 – It appears that something is amiss when the only way for pass a bill to better regulate cigarettes in America is to exempt the one type of cigarette that African Americans smoke the most – menthol. Congress is considering a bill that gives control of tobacco products to the Food and Drug Administration and would ban flavor additives such as mint, clove and vanilla, which appeal to young people. However, menthol flavor, which is preferred by more than 75 percent of Black smokers and only 25 percent of Whites, according to government estimates. Menthol cigarettes such as Kool were marketed during the 1960s in advertising campaigns targeting urban Black folks, according to the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network. That group withdrew its support from the tobacco control bill last month over the menthol exemption along with several former health secretaries, including Dr. Louis Sullivan, health secretary from 1989 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. “If we’re banning things such as clove and peppermint, then we should ban menthol,” says Dr. Sullivan, one of seven former health secretaries who sent a letter to lawmakers opposing the menthol exemption. But, apparently, the fix is in that if there’s no menthol exclusion, the bill that would put cigarettes under the purview of the FDA would sail through Congress with support from both sides of the isle. Supporters say by giving the FDA authority to reduce harmful ingredients in cigarettes, there would warnings about harmful substances in cigarettes and no more misleading labels such as “light” and “mild.” But am I the only one who thinks that it’s wrong to balance the rest of American smokers’ health on the backs of Black Americans? We already have higher rates of cancer and cancer deaths from smoking. What’s it going to take for our lives to be taken as seriously everyone else’s What do you think should be done aga?