Blacks in the South have higher HIV rates. Blacks in the South have higher HIV and AIDS rates. Why? Read more at BET.com/Body & Soul.

Be Sickle Smart program hits major cities.

The Be Sickle Smart program is on the road, and likely will be in a city near you. “American Idol” season two Winner Ruben Studdard hosted the Be Sickle Smart Education Day in Jacksonville, Fla., last Saturday to raise awareness of the risk of iron overload, a serious condition that affects people living with sickle-cell disease. Transfusional iron overload is a serious condition that can arise from having 10 or more blood transfusions over one’s lifetime (which is common among people who suffer from sickle-cell disease). If left untreated, iron overload can lead to serious health problems, including liver and heart damage, to name a few. The nationwide Be Sickle Smart campaign is a community-based health education effort leveraging advocacy groups, churches, local media and community leaders to raise awareness of sickle-cell disease and iron overload. The program will continue in Birmingham on Sept. 13 and Chicago on Sept. 18, with other stops planned later for Atlanta, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Philadelphia. More than 70,000 people in America have sickle-cell disease. One in 12 African Americans carries the trait for sickle-cell disease. For more information, go to Ask About Iron.com.

Is L.A. driving the trans fat bandwagon off a cliff?
Vital Signs: Cities and states are helping you cut the fat from your diets. Cities like Los Angeles are going as far as to stop fast food restaurants from opening in poor communities to lessen the number of unhealthy restaurants there. But do we really need that kind of help in the fat fight, or is the city going too far? Vital Signs has more.

Latinos, Blacks squeezed hard in tight job market.

As the nation’s job market grows tighter, Latinos and Black workers are suffering disproportionately, according to employment specialists and figures from the Department of Labor. While employment shrank by 51,000 jobs in July and nationwide joblessness rose to a four-year high of 5.7 percent, Latino unemployment was 7.4 percent last month, according to the Labor Department. Black joblessness was 9.7 percent in July. It was 9.2 percent in June. The overall teen jobless rate was 20.3 percent in July. It was 27.3 percent for Latino teens and 32 percent for Black teens. Analysts attribute much of the Latino job loss to ongoing contraction in the construction industry. A Labor Department report said the construction industry “has shed 557,000 jobs since its September 2006 employment peak, with nearly three-quarters of the decline occurring since October 2007.” A Pew report and other studies have found that for Black workers and their families, the picture is especially bleak. An Aug. 1 report by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress said that one in four Blacks lived in poverty in 2006. Black lost 55,000 jobs since December and wage growth continued its stall. “During the 2000s’ economic recovery, African American workers’ inflation-adjusted wages grew at an annual rate of only 0.2 percent, after having grown four times as much (0.8 percent) per year during the 1990s recovery,” the congressional committee reported. Between 2000 and 2006, median Black family income fell by 2.9 percent to $39,367, according to federal statistics.

Widow of slain Atlanta judge gets $5 million settlement. The widow of the Atlanta judge who was allegedly shot to death by a defendant during a daring escape from a courtroom three years ago will be paid more than $5.2 million by Fulton County. Under a settlement made public Thursday, Claudia Barnes, the wife of slain judge Rowland Barnes, the county will $5 million to settle lawsuits against itself and Sheriff Myron Freeman. The county will also pay a one-time annuity of $246,000 in a separate benefits case filed by Barnes, a former Fulton County employee. “I miss my husband every day, and this won’t take that away,” Barnes said Thursday. “I’ve had so many irons in the fire. This just closes another chapter of things I have to do.” Rowland Barnes was shot in March 2005 as he presided over a hearing involving convicted rapist Brian Nichols. The defendant allegedly wrested a sidearm from a deputy and shot to death the judge, a court reporter, a sheriff’s sergeant and, later, a federal agent. Nichols’ capital trial for the three deaths has been delayed several times. “Now I can focus all my attention on the criminal trial,” Barnes said.

Even the Klan ads didn’t help the Black challenger win. A nasty Democratic primary came to a close in Tennessee Thursday as the White incumbent congressman had a runaway win against his African-American challenger in a majority-Black district. Rep. Steve Cohen took an astounding 79 percent of the vote, compared with 19 percent for Nikki Turner, a Black lawyer, who throughout the campaign tried to convince voters that they should stick with their own race. In a particularly controversial campaign moment, Tinker ran an ad linking Cohen, a Jew, to the Ku Klux Klan. Sen. Barack Obama even entered the mix on that one, condemning the ad, which juxtaposed Cohen’s picture with that of a hooded Klansman. Cohen has long civil rights record. Just last month, he introduced a resolution to get Congress to issue an apology to African Americans for this nation’s imposition of slavery and Jim Crow.

Blacks are vanishing from cities.

Black folks are fleeing city life. In such disparate American cities as Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Houston and Atlanta, African Americans are evaporating as Whites are pouring back into the urban core, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. San Francisco’s vanishing Black problem has gotten to the point where Mayor Gavin Newsome even established a special team to work on ways to convince African Americans from leaving. In that city, Black deaths are dramatically outpacing Black births. In D.C., between 2000 and 2006, the White population grew by 24,000 Whites, while the Black population declined by 21,000. What was a 72-percent Black city in the 1970s is now 60-percent African American. The report attributes the population shift to rising real estate costs and Black flight to the suburbs.

Florida driver faces race charges. The Florida driver who allegedly ran down a woman on a bicycle, just because she’s Black, is now facing two felony hate-crime charges. Earlier this month, police arrested Thomas Cosby after he allegedly crashed into 25-year-old Nekedia Cato, who was hospitalized with a broken leg and internal injuries. She had been riding her bike on the sidewalk along a state road when Cosby allegedly rode onto the sidewalk to hit her. Witnesses said Cosby ranted a slew of racial gibberish about wanting to kill Black folks. He has been charged with aggravated battery and battery.

Two NYPD officers rode around with a Black baby doll’s head on their antenna

Dozens of African-American leaders turned out at a rally in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park Thursday to denounce two White New York Police officers who rode around town with the head of a Black baby doll impaled on the antenna of their unmarked car. “When you talk about the young people that are here today, and the message that is being sent to them when they see this,” said Manhattan Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, NY1 News reports. “They see the lack of serious attention that is given by the city is not really something I want to be party to,” adds Mark-Viverito, who, along with State Sen. Bill Perkins (above) for the protest. Go to BET.com/News for more on this story.  Do you believe that the officers were unaware the doll’s head was on their antenna?

While perspectives differ widely, a new poll suggests racial relations are improving
When it comes to racial relations in America, hope is alive. Blacks and Whites may have completely different views about the seriousness of racism, but an astonishing 58 percent of both groups believe that America’s race relations “eventually will be worked out,” according to a new Gallup poll. “I don’t believe we’ve totally overcome everything that’s necessary for equality, but I do believe things are getting better,” says Ricardo Russell, a 30-year-old African-American retail sales manager from Oak Park, Mich., who participated in the poll. Susann Matarese, a White 52-year-old medical receptionist from Port Charlotte, Fla., admits that she’s a bit troubled by all the interracial dating these days but believes that race relations are “better than they used to be, that’s for sure.” Still, according to the poll, which is the latest in a series of surveys on race by Gallup, 38 percent of both groups believe that race will “always be a problem” in America. Further amplifying the notion that Blacks and Whites tend to see the world completely different when it comes to race, two in three White folks say they are satisfied with the way Blacks are treated in America, while two in three Blacks say they are not satisfied. In addition, the poll found, most Blacks say that racial discrimination is a major factor among the problems African Americans confront, such as dying earlier than Whites and being jailed at a much higher rate. However, most Whites see racism a minor factor or not a factor at all in those situations. But the Black perspective on such issues as employment and housing has improved in recent years, even though it far less rosy than the White perspective. Today, for example, 52 percent of African Americans say Blacks have as good a chance as Whites to get any housing they can afford – that’s 8 percentage points higher than last year. Forty-three percent of African Americans say Blacks have as good a chance to get any kind of job they’re qualified for, a 5-point spike from last year and 10-point increase from 2005. The poll queried 702 Whites, 608 Blacks and 502 Hispanics on issues of race between July 5 and July 6. Is racism going away in America? Do you see race relations improving, getting worse or pretty much staying the same?

Natalie Cole makes a brave stand

Vital Signs: Natalie Cole Brave is brave to come forward with her Hep C diagnoses. Vital Signs has more on what’s in store for her.

Gene variation equals higher Black HIV rates
A slight difference in genes could explain why African Americans are at greater risk of getting HIV, a news study finds. The study performed by UK and U.S. scientists finds that a gene that they say evolved to help protect people against malaria, may in fact work against people who have it, increasing their likelihood of contracting the HIV virus. The gene is question, known as the DARC gene, may hinder the body’s ability to fight off the HIV virus in its early stage, according to the researchers, lead by Dr. Sunil Ahuja, a professor of infectious diseases from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The gene variation may provide a clue as to why the virus has spread so much there, as well as among people with African heritage living elsewhere, said Robin Weiss, a University College London virologist who helped write the study. “It’s the first inherited genetic factor that’s African- specific shown to increase the risk of the HIV,” he said yesterday in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “At least a portion of the burden of the disease in Africa is because people there are born more susceptible to the virus.” HIV risk may jump 40 percent in people of African ancestry because of a slight genetic change, according to researchers who say the mutation might help account for the spread of AIDS virus in Africa. The gene variation may explain as much as 11 percent of all cases of the disease on that continent, said an international team led by Weijing He, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. In a paradox, the variant also appeared to slow the progress of AIDS in infected people, the scientists said in a study that will be published tomorrow in the journal Cell Host & Microbe. About three-quarters of the 33 million people worldwide who are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, live in Africa south of the Sahara, where most people are Black.

Blacks are underrepresented in cancer studies
Across Maryland, minorities and residents of rural areas are under-represented in cancer trials, according to a new study from University of Maryland researchers. And the study found that rates of participation among African Americans are dropping, reflecting a nationwide trend. “Everyone should have an equal chance of participating in a trial. That does not happen,” said Shiraz I. Mishra, an associate professor at the School of Medicine and one of the study’s authors. It’s no secret that some drugs respond better in certain racial groups. Such is the case with some new types of heart disease drugs, researchers have found. However, without minority participation in medical trials, there is no guarantee that new medicines and therapies being developed to treat cancer will work with Blacks or other ethnic groups, researchers say. The Maryland study, which appears in the current Journal of Clinical Oncology, made its findings after looking at 2,240 Maryland cancer patients enrolled in National Cancer Institute-sponsored clinical trials from 1999 to 2002 What they found is that cancer patient participation from rural counties was underrepresented. Participation from counties heavily populated by African Americans, such as Baltimore City and Prince George’s County, was also lower than the researchers anticipated. African-American patients have less access to care overall and so are less likely to end up in a study. Over the course of the study, participation among African Americans decreased from 24 percent to 18 percent of the cancer trial patients in Maryland. One reason may be that many cancer trials exclude patients with diseases other than cancer. Baquet said African Americans are more likely than Whites to have multiple ailments, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Is stress and the couch-potato effect killing Black Americans?
Vital Signs: Stress, unequal treatment in the U.S. healthcare system and stagnant lifestyles are killing Black Americans, various health professionals told an audience at the NAACP on Saturday. What are the solutions? Vital Signs has the answers.

Oftentimes, people lump all African Americans into one group with the same interestA new comprehensive survey of African Americans offers a powerful reminder of how wrong it is to lump all Black folks together. The survey, which queried some 3,400 African Americans between 13 and 74 years old, found there are at least a dozen distinct communities within Black society, each bound by common interests, attitudes and perspectives about varying aspects of life. For example, there are those “tech-savvy,” “connected Black teens”; “Black straddlers,” who stress about such things as dating, marriage and money; and the financially secure, educated group, who believe that solutions for the ills of Black life must come from within the Black community. “There’s a difference (between) articulating that we’re not a monolithic community and quantifying it,” says Catherine Hughes, founder and board chairwoman of Radio One, the huge Black media firm that called for the survey. “We really needed to take a snapshot of the Black community with all of its textures and nuances and debunk the myth. … We wanted to quantify and qualify the incredible diversity in our community.” Among other findings in the Yankelovich-conducted survey are that more than two-thirds of Blacks use the Internet, just a smidgen from the 70-percent figure for all Americans ( according to an earlier study by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press); Blacks are pretty much evenly split when it comes to being called “Black” (42 percent) vs. “African American (44 percent); about one in four (24 percent) say they have experienced prejudiced within the past three months, and 82 percent say it is “important for parents to prepare their children for prejudice.” While a sizable chunk of Blacks say they deeply mistrust police, courts, government and the media, a solid 60 percent say “things are getting better for me” and more than 50 percent say they see good things ahead for the Black community.

Americans are living longer
For the first time, U.S. life expectancy has surpassed 78 years, the government reported Wednesday, although the United States continues to lag behind about 30 other countries in estimated life span and in some parts of the country life expectancy actually declined. Life expectancy is up for both men and women, and Whites and Blacks in the United States, but Black men still had the shortest lifespan - 70 years. The increase in life expectancy is planly due to better living and to falling rates in almost all the leading causes of death, federal health officials said. The average life expectancy for babies born in 2006 was about four months greater than for children born in 2005. However, in a report published in last month’s Public Libraries of Science Medicine, government figures reported that life expectancy actually declined by 1.3 years in some regions of the country, particularly for women living in Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta. Japan has the longest life expectancy — 83 years for those born in 2006, according to World Health Organization data. Switzerland and Australia were also near the top of the list. “The international comparisons are not that appealing, but we may be in the process of catching up,” said Samuel Preston, a University of Pennsylvania demographer. He is co-chairman of a National Research Council panel looking at why America’s life expectancy is lower than other nations’. The new U.S. data, released Wednesday, come from the National Center for Health Statistics. It’s a preliminary report of 2006 numbers, based on data from more than 95 percent of the death certificates collected that year. Life expectancy is the period a child born in 2006 is expected to live, assuming mortality trends stay constant. The 2006 increase is due mainly to falling mortality rates for nine of the 15 leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, accidents and diabetes. “I think the most surprising thing is that we had declines in just about every major cause of death,” said Robert Anderson, who oversaw work on the report for the health statistics center. The overall death rate fell from 799 per 100,000 in 2005 to about 776 the following year. As for the poor life expectancy in the South and Appalachia, health officials say people lacked access to quality healthcare as well as the lack of public health initiatives to control smoking, diabetes and obesity. “It’s probably a sign that things we know how to do extremely well are not reaching the people who need it the most,” Majid Ezzati a Harvard University population and life expectancy expert told NPR. “The fact that its geographically located means that there’s something [going on] beyond individual choice.”