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.

Sickle cell is on the rise in some communities. Once thought of as a disease that affects only Black Americans, sickle-cell anemia and related blood diseases can also be traced to countries as diverse as Burma, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Spain and the Philippines. Globalization and mixed marriages mean more people are at risk than ever before. Last year, Neighborhood Health Clinics tested 400 Burmese refugees for inherited blood disorders, and another 800 are expected to be tested this year, said Belinda Dean, director of the clinics’ sickle-cell program. About 5 percent have tested positive this year for an inherited disease called hemoglobin E, less serious than sickle cell. “I’ve had people come in here who have a child that tests positive … and they say, ‘There is no way I could be a carrier,’ ” Dean said. “They may not know everything about their ancestry. They may not realize that someone in the family was from Africa or the Mediterranean or Southeast Asia.” About 2 million Americans, including one in 12 Blacks, carry the sickle cell trait, according to the federal National Institutes of Health. For a carrier, there are no or few symptoms, but a child born to two parents with the trait has a one in four chance of developing sickle cell disease. If one parent has the trait and the other doesn’t, all the children will have the trait. If one parent has sickle-cell anemia and the other has the trait, each child born to the couple has a 50 percent chance of having the trait or the disease. Perhaps the silver lining in the increase of people at risk for the trait or the disease is that more funding for sickle-cell research and related diseases could become available. Research using skin stem cells to cure mice with sickle-cell anemia has shown promise, as have bone marrow transplants. Earlier this year, the National Institutes of Health committed to improving and restructuring its sickle-cell research program.