The bulk of those who died drowned 

Updated Sept. 1, 2008 – As another hurricane bears down on New Orleans, a new report says Hurricane Katrina caused some 986 deaths in Louisiana either directly or indirectly, making it the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. Gulf Coast in 80 years. Study authors – who were from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – said in a press  release Thursday that the leading cause of death was drowning (40 percent), followed by injury and trauma, then heart conditions. Almost half of the victims were 75 or older. Eighty percent of the deaths occurred on the day of the storm — Aug. 29, 2005.

Read more »

Obama, McCain take different approaches to health care reform  Posted Aug. 29, 2008 — While more children are getting health care, thanks to government programs nationwied, there’s still some 60 million people who are not covered by any insurance plan, which begs the question: What are the presidential candidates really offering in the way of a national health care plan?

Read more »

 Posted Aug. 26, 2008 – I was just blown away by how quickly legendary football great Gene Upshaw was felled by pancreatic cancer only days after he found out he had the disease. Upshaw was a trailblazer whose mark is forever etched in the annals of football. If not for him, there might not be a free agency system, which frees players and their teams from a lot of grief when things go sour or either party wants out. But the disease that got to him is not only is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths, but tends to be more deadly for African Americans.

Read more »

 Posted Aug. 26, 2008 – As the Democratic party heats up, people in the HIV/AIDS fight wonder when is the disease that’s killing off Black folks at alarming numbers going to get some attention. Neither candidate has trotted out a national plan to address the rising problem of Blacks dying nationwide from AIDS at a rate disproportionately higher than for any other ethnic group, notes Black AIDS Institute, which last month issued Left Behind,  a report that shows that as American has upped the amount of money it provides to fight AIDS overseas it has not developed a plan to fight the disease on its own shores. And while the organization celebrates the triumphs of the Democratic Party, which is on the cusp of rewriting American political history by formally nominating Barack Obama as its presidential candidate, it urges the party not to forget that domestically the HIV/AIDS epidemic is at least 40 percent larger than the governmented estimated it to be for more than a decade, according to new government figures, and  that it is growing by more than 55,000 new infections a year. At least 45 percent of those newly infected in 2006 were Black Americans, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says, despite the fact that Blacks are just 13 percent of the population. As the Democrats and Republicans drum up support for their particular candidates, the Institute and 30 other organizations that have been toiling away to hold back the flood of HIV/AIDS cases are saying HOLD UP! Before offering their support, they are demanding that  the candidates and congressional leaders first explain what they are going to do to stop the epidemic?  In a historically unprecedented move, over 30 national HIV/AIDS organizations and leaders representing African-American, Latino, Native American/Alaska Native, and Asian & Pacific Islander communities have joined forces in an urgent call for the development and implementation of a comprehensive national AIDS strategy. The demands to the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees come in response to long standing concerns about unmet needs for targeted HIV research, treatment access, medical care and prevention in communities of color, the groups said in a press release earlier this week.  Let’s see how the candidates respond. To learn more about the AIDS records and platforms of both Obama and Republican presidential candidate John McCain, check out the Black AIDS Institute’s December 2007 report on all presidential candidates, We Demand Accountability.

Posted Aug. 22, 2008 – You might wonder how could someone like football legend Gene Upshaw could be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a mere week before he suddenly died from the disease? The tough-as-nails former football players union negotiator and NFL star died Thursday while vacationing with his family from this deadly and usually fatal form of cancer. The disease also recently claimed Julius “Sho Nuff” Carry III, the actor who terrorized the Black karate hero of Harlem “Bruce Leroy” in Berry Gordy’s campy The Last Dragon. Carry died last Tuesday from complications of pancreatic cancer. While pancreatic cancer accounts for only 2 percent of all new cancers in the United States, it is the fourth leading cause of cancer death among males and females. In 2007, an estimated 37,130 individuals were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and an estimated 33,370 deaths will occur as a result of this disease. But why is pancreatic cancer so deadly? Read more »

Posted Aug. 21, 2008 – A tragic, tragic loss has befallen Congress. U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones  (D-Ohio), died yesterday after suffering a brain aneurysm. The five-term lawmaker was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. Wednesday, after suffering a brain hemorrhage caused when the aneurysm burst. It left Tubbs Jones, 58, with limited brain function, said Eileen Sheil, a spokeswoman for Cleveland Clinic, where Tubbs was treated after she collapsed behind the wheel of her car while driving in her hometown. Aneurysms can strike without warning, and affect more women than men, health research shows. Read more »

Posted Aug. 19, 2008 – As the untimely death of singing legend Isaac Hayes shows, stokes can strike anyone at any time, even if you are doing the right things to stay healthy. It was incredibly shocking that Hayes would die as he was working out on a treadmill, but without knowing any of the details of his overall health his death becomes a reminder not that death can come no matter what you do to stay healthy, but that life is lived to the fullest if you do all you can to stay healthy.

Read more »

 Aug. 18, 2008 – The latest weapon in the arsenal of the obesity fight is a ban against trans fats, those pesky artery-clogging oils that mostly come from animal products that are used to make everything from pastries to French fries. Cities like New York, Seattle, Philadelphia and Baltimore, among others, and the State of California have banned trans fats from restaurants all together and New York, Chicago and Nashville have opted for a requirement that restaurants from Burger King to Starbucks lable their food with the amount of trans fats and calories on their menus. But when Los Angeles’ City Council passed a measure to stop new fast food restaurants from opening in some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, I think they were they riding this the trans fats ban bandwagon right into the ground.

Read more »

Posted Aug. 13, 2008 – You might find this as strange as I did, but there are some folks who will vote against Sen. Barack Obama being our next president just because they think he’s too skinny? That’s right, as The Wall Street Journal’s Amy Chozick asked, “[Could]Sen. Obama’s skinniness be a liability?”  This question comes from the notion that most Americans of voting age are overweight – some 66 percent of the electorate in fact would be considered overweight; another 32 percent are obese, by most health measures. And to be string-bean thin, like Obama, is considered “different.” In fact, one “unnamed [Hillary] Clinton supporter” actually wrote on a Yahoo political message board: “I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.”

Read more »

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 »