A Million Pink Ribbons Have Done Nothing for Black Women

[ismnotwasm]

Pink crap-drunk America was busy Racing For The Cure for the last 30 years, one race has been left behind in the fight against breast cancer: black women. In 2013, black women are still twice as likely to die from the disease than their white counterparts. Twice. As. Likely. That's a fucking disgrace.

The New York Times features an examination of the racial disparity in breast cancer deaths today, citing several reasons black women have been left behind, and the years-too-late steps breast cancer charities and community organizations are taking to address the problem.

The long and short of it, according to hospital officials and researchers, isn't that cancer interacts differently with the cells of women with African heritage; it's that black women aren't as likely to catch cancer early as white women. They're not as likely to go to the doctor, because black women are less likely to be able to afford the doctor, and more likely to distrust a medical system that hasn't exactly proven itself trustworthy to the African American community.

For years, America's piss-poor for-profit healthcare system that kept preventative care out of reach of people who needed it to live. Prior to the Affordable Care Act's inroads into decoupling insurance and employment (or extreme poverty), black women, statistically, were less likely to work jobs that came with cushy health insurance that would pay for mammograms. To paraphrase the Times, the poor are also less likely to work jobs that afforded them the time off they'd need for medical care, even if they did qualify for Medicaid. (Say what you will about the "rocky" rollout of Obamacare or pajama boy or whatthefuckever smarmy political Twitter is beating to death today; at least Obamacare is making progress toward a country where people don't die of cancer they could have cured had they caught it early.)

http://jezebel.com/a-million-pink-ribbons-have-done-nothing-for-black-wome-1487370309

[NYC_SKP]

1. Recommended. (nt)

[boston bean]

2. It's shameful...

Truly it is. We need single payer NOW. not ten years from now.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. But this too

and more likely to distrust a medical system that hasn't exactly proven itself trustworthy to the African American community.

I could go 'all the way' in the Fertility Industrial Complex - but point blank . . . I have a serious distrust that the medical community will have the best intention for me.

I don't know when my brain tripped that wire - I think it was my 'second' rheumy I 'fired' who told me it wasn an all in the head fibromyalgia when we have xrays of back my fusing itself and damage to my hips (I have A.S.) - on and high c-reactive and HLB-27. And a solid diagnosis. And one confirmed by my NEW rheumy.

But I don't trust 'em . . .

So you have affluent, educated black women who DO have access to top tier health care but we know we've been used as guinea pigs and are 'throw aways' - and so there is a fear there. I'm not the only one.

[ismnotwasm]

4. As I nurse I've seen this

Both the distrust and the unfortunate need for it.

Let's hope for better days ahead.