Lindon Barrett’s colleagues at UC-Riverside describe him as a brilliant scholar
A 20-year-old southern California man has been arrested in connection with the murder of an African-American studies professor who was found dead in his home last week, according to officials at the university where the victim worked. Marlon Martinez was booked on suspicion of murder when he returned to the missing car of Lindon Barrett, which police had staked out. Barrett, 46, who taught Black history at the University of California-Riverside, was found dead in his Long Beach, Calif., home on Sunday. Authorities say they had been called by neighbors who reported a foul odor coming from one of the units, according to a Long Beach Police news release. Barrett apparently had been dead for several days, police said, whose investigation concluded that he had been slain. When detectives realized that the victim’s vehicle was missing, they began a search. Once police found it, they staked it out. Martinez was locked up in the Long Beach Jail in lieu of $1 million bail, according to police. University officials said that Barrett had taught at the UC-Riverside for about a year. “A brilliant scholar, Lindon was just finishing a major book on slavery’s central role in the evolution of Western modernity,” wrote Katherine Kinney, English Department chairwoman in a statement released to the press. “Lindon offered so much, personally and professionally, to the department, the campus, and the scholarly field of African-American studies.” Barrett and Martinez were apparently acquaintances, police said.

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.