FORUM Black Women and Breast Cancer Dr. Julianne Malveaux Guest Columnist October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Millions of women are sporting pink rib bon pins in support of a month when organizations like the Susan G. Komen Foundation fundraise and galvanize people around the quest for a cure for breast cancer. They are fight to raise awareness - more than 184,000 women will be diag nosed with breast cancer in the United States in 2008, and more than 40,000 will die from breast cancer, o While African-American women are less likely than White women to get breast cancer, we are more likely to die from it. The morbidity rate for White women is 9.4 per 100,000, compared to 15.4 per 100,000 for African-American women. Additionally, African American women often are diagnosed with breast cancer when they are younger, and when African-American women under 55 are diag nosed with breast cancer; it is more likely to have deadlier effects. Researchers are study ing the reasons why African American ^vomen are so much more vulnerable than other women are to breast cancer. But the findings make it important for African American women to get regu lar mammograms and to deal with other aspects of our health. Whenever there are health awareness weeks or months, whether they are for breast cancer, muscular dystrophy, diabetes, or another cause, t crave attention to the broader issue of health care and health access. We can take a slice our of the health care challenge by focusing, in October, on breast cancer, but the fact is that part of African- American women's increased vulnerability to breast cancer is a result of dif ferential access to health care and health services. Too many African Americans lack health insur-C1 ance. Too many wear the stress of racism in poor eating and living habits, and it shows up with obesity, high blood pres sure, and the higher incidence of other diseases in our com munity. African-American women are more likely than any other population, in 2008, to be diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. When another population was most likely to be diagnosed, HIV/AIDS awareness gar nered headlines. Now, too many are silent about this dis ease, unless they are. talking about the international inci dence of HIV/ AIDS. It is not clear why our nation has not galvanized around the health care issue. To be sure, both presidential candidates have ideas about health insurance and health care; their plans are divergent. In my humble opinion, Hillary Rodham Clinton had one of the best health care plans we've seen in a long time, reflective of the work she has spent on health care since she worked on it as First Lady in the Clinton Administration. Senators Obama and McCain wpuld be advised to review her plan and incorpo rate aspects of it into their own work. Somehow, every American must have access to preventive health care, and protection from bankruptcy when they are diagnosed with expensive diseases. And some how, as we raise awareness about breast cancer, we must also raise awareness about the ways breast cancer incidence is intertwined with the status of our health care system. t Breast cancer awareness has an international dimen sion. Hala Moddelmog, President of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, indicates that 10 million people will die in the next 25 years absent intervention around breast cancer. Last year, the Komen organization held a global advocacy summit in Hungary, and announced pilot programs in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. This month, they sent delegations to Ghana and Tanzania. It is important to note that for all the challenges women face with breast cancer in the United States, health care access is even more limited in developing countries. The Komen organization is to be commended for their work in taking breast cancer global. Back at home, though, the health care disparities that rid dle our system are as present in the realm of breast cancer and in other areas. Sisters must be among those sporting pink rib bons, but beyond the pink rib bons, we must all be passion ate advocates for increased health care access, especially in the African-American com munity. Julianne Malveaux is President of Bennett College for Women. She can be reached at presof fice@bennett.edu . Obama Ahead - But Don't Believe It George Curry O Guest Columnist According to the polls, Barack Obama is steadily widening his lead over Republican rival John McCain to become the next president of the United States. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday shows Obama with a 53 per cent to 43 percent lead among likely voters. There is only one problem - don't believe the polls. As the Washington Post noted in a story on its poll, at this stage in 1992, Bill Clinton held a 14-point lead over President George H.W. Bush, yet he won by only 6 percent. In mid-October 1976, Jimmy Carter held a 13-point lead over incumbent Gerald Ford, but won by only two points. When the issue of race is added to the mix, convention al wisdom - which is often neither conventional nor wise - goes out of the window. Uppermost in the minds of African-Americans is the Bradley effect, named after former Los Aqgeles Mayor Tom Bradley, w!ho sought to become governor of California in 1982. Even last minute polls showed him leading by a wide margin of victory. Yet, Bradley narrowly lost the election to Republican George Deukmejian. Many say it was because White vot ers lied ta pollsters about their willingness to vote for an African- American . But it wasn't just, as John McCain would say, "that one." Pre-election polls also overstated the margin of vic tory for Harold Washington in Chicago; David Dinkins in New York City; and Doug Wilder in Virginia. But Bradley's race predat ed the Internet and cell phones and before Black music did more to erase racial barriers than any presidential speech. In fact, there are an increasing number of people questioning the premise of the Bradley effect. In a story headlined, "Do Polls Lie About Race?" New York Times reporter Kate Zernike wrote: "But pollsters and political scientists say concern about a Bradley effect - some call it a Wilder effect or a Dinkins effect, and plenty call it a theory in search of data - is misplaced. It obscures what they argue is the more important point: there are plenty of ways that race complicates polling. "Considered alone or in combination, these factors could produce an unforeseen Obama landslide with surprise victories in the South, a stun ningly large Obama loss, or a recount-thin margin. In a year that has already turned expec tations upside down, it is hard to completely reassure the fretters." Looking back, some observers say pollsters got it wrong with Bradley not because White voters lied to pollsters, but because they failed to factor in the absentee ballots. Whatever the reason, some researchers think that's less likely to happen today. According to the New York Times: "In a new study, Daniel J. Hopkins, a postdoc toral fellow at Harvard, con sidered 133 elections between 1989 and 2006 and found that blacks running for office before 1996 suffered a median Bradley effect of three per centage points. Blacks run ning after 1996, however, per formed about three percentage points better than their polls predicted." As the debate continues about whether the Bradley effect is valid, the McCain camp continues to exploit the issue of race. When Obama's name has been mentioned at McCain Palin rallies, there have been cries of "Kill him!" and "Off with his head!" It has gotten so bad that McCain has urged his follow ers to tone down the rhetoric. Away from rallies, however, his attack ads use code words to argue, as Palin put it, that Obama is "not one of us." But observers have been able to see past the code words. "From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election," Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times. "Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected presi dent no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is still out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unam biguous answer to the second: Yes." Rich explained, "McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead." He isn't the only person who feels McCain, is playing to racial fears. "Obama has been running as a post-racial candidate from the start, and he has been doing it very well," David Brinkley, a noted presidential historian told the New York Times. "But the fact of the matter is that some voters - we can't know yet how many - will not get past his race. And I very much believe that the McCain-Palin ticket is tapping into that." And there is plenty to tap into. In that same New York Times article, John Schuster, a Republican from Wheeling, ? W.Va., said, "What you hear around here is, 'Would you rather" have a black friend in the White House, or a white enemy?"' He explained, "Most guys 1 know are for McCain, and a lot of it's because of race." George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. He can be reached through his Web site. www.georgecurry.com . The Chronicle. Ik* Choice for African-Americas Ntwi, U located at *17 N. 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