5A
OPINIONS/Charlotte $o«t
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Dispelling lung
cancer myths
with some facts
By Carol Harriston
SPECIAL TO THE POST
Lxaig cancer kills more women tiaan breast cancer. It’s
deadlier for men th^ln prostate cancer. In fact, lung cance-
claims more lives a year than breast, prostate, colon, liver
and skin cancers combined - 30 percent of cancer deaths.
The disease strikes black men 50 percent more often
than white men, 60 percent more often than non-white
Hispanic men. Black women are diagnosed with lui^ can
cer less than white women. For every 10 people in the
United States with the disease, about six of them die with
in a year of the diagnosis. Seven of those 10 will die with
in two years.
For both black men and women, the diagnosis is sober
ing. Develop lung cancer, and you’re more likely to die from
it than any other racial group.
November is Lung Cancer Awareness month, no better
time to learn facts and to dispel myths about this deadly
disease.
First, a few facts.
About 175,000 new cases of lung cancer will be discov
ered this year. By Dec. 31, 162,000 people who were diag
nosed with lung cancer before 2006 wOl die. Current and
former smokers account for a vast majority of lung cancer
cases, but up to 15 percent of those who get the disease
never smoked.
Lung cancer patimts who are black are less likely than
whites to have suigical treatment, a statistic that con
tributes to the higher death rate for blacks with the dis
ease.
Once diagnosed with lung cancer, the patient has a 15
percent chance to hve at least five years. Need some per
spective? With prostate cancer, it’s 99.9 percent; breast
cancer, 89 percent; colon cancer, 65 percent.
Now, some myths cited in the book ‘Lung Cancer, Myths,
Facts, Choices and Hope” by Claudia Henschke, MD,
Peggy McCarthy with Sarah Wemick.
If you smoke, the damage to your Irmgs is done, so there’s
no reason to quit. Research shows that quittir^ use of
tobacco products can help to heal damage that leads to
cancer and can improve response to treatment for those
with the disease.
Women need not worry about lung cancer, it’s a “man
thing.” The American Cancer Society estimates that
82,000 women will get lung cancer this year. The disease
will kUl 72,000 women who had the disease before 2006.
Coughing up blood is a first sign of lung cancer. It is a
symptom, but usually appears after the disease is estab
lished.
Getting a diagnosis of lung cancer is like gettir^ a death
sentence, and patients often hear that nothing can be
dcoie. \^^thout treatment, lung cancel' is usually fatal. But
preper treatment, especially in early stages of the disease,
can extend life. Half of people with an early diagnosis of
lung cancer are afive five years, for example, if suigery is
performed.
'Ibbacco smoke contains at least 55 carcinogens. Smoking
marijuana, which contains more tar than cigarettes is
thought to cause lui^ cancer.
Other cancer-causing agents or risk factors have been
linked to the development of lung cancer. They include:
radon, asbestos, air pollution, radiation, a deficiency or
excess of "Vitamin A and, most notably secondhand smoke.
Also, living in an area such as Washington, D.C., with bad
air pollution can contribute to developing lung cancer.
Dr. Henschke has developed a procedure using spiral CT
scans that can detect early lung cancer. This x-ray proce
dure provides cross sectional and, if needed,
three-dimensional images of internal organs and struc
tures of the body The spiral CT scan may discover Irmg
cancer before a patient displays symptoms, offering
patients greater chances of long-term survival and cure.
Symptoms of lung cancer are common with other dis
eases and easy to ignore. They include fatigue, shortness of
breath, wheezing, pains in the shoulder, back or arms,
chronic bronchitis or pneumonia, wei^t loss and loss of
appetite.
If you have a history of lui^ cancer in your family or
think you may be at risk for developing the disease talk to
your doctor.
CAROL HARRISTON lives in Baltimore. Md.
Connect with tiCJe $0J(t
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nied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope.
Common sense will
ultimately lead to
common cents
Some people say “common sense is not common,” which maybe
the main reason black people are not as far up the economic lad
der as we should be.
Having been in this country since it started, having provided the
fi'ee labor that led to the creation of much of the wealth now
enjoyedbythose in charge, and having established
a history of self-help and entrepreneurial initiative
since our enslavement, black people have the
strongest case and the greatest need to exercise a
little common sense when it comes to workiig col
lectively to improve om- current position in the
U.S.
If we use our common sense, we wdl definitely
have common cents. Common sense suggests that
we do as other groups are doing, and as om ances-
tors did in this coimtry pool our resources and sup
port one another.
Common sense teUs us to look around and see the dire straits our
children are facing in this country and start compiling some com
mon cents to help them meet and overcome their emrent and
future economic challerges.
Common sense teaches us that we must not do anything, that
wiU subject us to the misery of incarceration and the profiteering
of this nation’s prison industrial complex; we must institute a
national Boycott Prisons campaign and work to give our youth
alternatives, especially economic alternatives, to their negative
behaviors.
Common s«:ise should have taught us that banks and other
financial institutions still discriminate against us, and by using
our common cents we can overcome much of that discrimination
by coUectivdy leveraging our resources and creating and main
taining our own financial institutions, (Before anyone gets scared
or asks why we need black owned banks and credit unions, think
about the Korean banks, the Cuban banks, the Polish banks, the
Chinese banks, and all the others that exist in this country)
Common sense dictates that we utilize our common cents to fund
our own initiatives, first, and Ihen look to others to support them
— suppoiT them, not control them. Having common cents would
also increase our ability to defend ourselves against local pohtical
issues that are not in our best interests; our common cents can be
used to fund ballot initiatives, finance the campaigns of candidates
who wOl work on our behalf, and pay for research, analyses, and
recommendations that can be used to make informed voting deci
sions.
Common sense instructs us to pursue our self-interest in a soci
ety that is rapidly becoming more polarized. Common sense tells
us that black people do not ccoitrol the major political and eco
nomic games, but to assure our paiiidpation in the game and our
being in a position to win every now and then we must use our
common cents. Economics runs this country, common sense
should teH us that.
If we use our common sense we will also use our common cents
to create and sustain an economic foundation finrn which to oper
ate and on which to build even more common cents tnitaatives. We
must use our common sense the way our, ancestors did, as they
quickly caught on to the system they faced and immediately went
to work building their economic resources to purchase their fi«e-
dom and that of their relatives and fiiends. Freedom still ain’t
fi^, yall.
As we look back on our progress for the past 45 years, common
sense shows us how far we have come relative to the strategies we
chose to pursue and the leaderehip we decided to follow. Common
sense says several of our leaders have done marvelously well, but
as a whole Black people are still stuck at the bottom of the eco
nomic ladder, a ladder with rungs that begin at the halfway point.
It is up to us to figure out how to get to the halfway point; common
sense su^ests we must build add own rungs to that economic lad
der.
Utilizing our common sense would lead us to the accumulation
of common cents and we would be well on our way to developir^
the resources we need to survive and thrive in this nation.
Currently we are too individualistic in our thinking and our
actions to create common cents strategies. We must change our
minds, raise our level of consciousness, and put positive action
behind our rhetoric.
We must be willing to use our individual God-given gifts, to con
tribute to the uplift of a people who have suffered more horrendous
treatment, both physical and psychological, than any people in this
country Common sense tells us that. How else are we going to
prosper? How else will we achieve economic anpowerment? How
else will we ever be able to positively impact the futures of our chil
dren?
Many of us have heard that common sense is not common. If
that is true, then I guess I can understand the paucity, or lack of
common cents initiatives among black people. But I don’t beheve
black people are short on common sense.
Our great-grandparents could not have done all they did without
possessing a tremendous amount of common sense that, in turn,
directed them to accumulate a great deal of common cents with
which to take care of their business? What’s up with us?
JAMES E. CUNGMAN a professor al the University of Cincinnati, is for
mer editor of the Cincinnati Herald newspaper.
What will MLK
Memorial really
mean to Ameriea?
As I approached the site of the memorial to Dr.
Martin Luther King on the Mali in Washington, D.C.
to attend the event celebrating the beginning con
struction, I was impressed at its juxtaposition
between Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson.
This was a fitting place because King was one of the
“founding fathei's” of this nation eveiy bit as miich as
those who began the democi'atic expeiiment in 1787.
In effect, men like Lincoln and Jeffei'son would begin
the ejqjeriment, but it would take Fi-ederick Dou^ass
and Dr. Kir^, along with Ceasar
Chavez, Russell Means, and others to
fulfill it by expanding the notions of
democracy, equahty and freedom,
throu^ their leadership of movements
which demanded that they apply to aU
Americans.
As I sat there listening to the speak
ers on the platform I looked at those
arrayed on the stage and became awai'e
that they represented a grand conti-a-
diction, reflective of the position of Black people in
America today Again, as at the funeral of Coretta
Scott King, the presence and voices of officialdom in
the person of presidents of the United States and dig
nitaries - most of whom were unassodated with the
movement, wei-e accorded priority But the presence
and voices of those who worked with King closest
(except for Andy Young and Rev Jesse Jackson) and
for whom he suffered most were lai'gely missing.
They included Dorothy Cotton, James Orar^ - Rev
Joe Lowery would surely not be invited - Rev. C. T.
■Sdvian, someone fix>m Ralph Abernathy’s fanuly and
others.
That scene on the stage was as conti’adictory and as
ironic as the image of Malcolm X on a postage stamp,
but it is perhaps inevitable as the best of our commu
nity ascend to the realm of national respect. With
that ascension, however, theie is the question of what
the memorial would represent.
Would it be the way which the nation pays respect
to the man who led a movement for social change,
chalier^ing pohtidans with “lips dripping with inter
position and nullification” to a vision of the
Constitution that held out the hope of resoiu'ceful dt-
izenship? Or, will it be mei-ely a monument to a slain
dreamer who pined fear the eventual fi'eedom of his
people? Will it become a constant remindei- of a man
and people who waged a bloody battle for fi'eedom
and throu^ him, challenged to the nation “to hve out
the true meaning of its creed,” or distort his life as one
of an doquent preachesr.
The action that resolves the contradiction is to be
perpetually eng^ed in the strv^^e for authentidty,
to infuse the memorial with the meaning of the move
ment for which King gave his life, by continuing m
this age to raise the troubling questions about fulfill
ing the meaning of the Ameiican Constitution, to
challenge the direction of America when it privileges
racism, war and poverty by its callous inaction or mis
directed decision, hi this way we continue to try “to
bend the moral ai'ch of the univei'se toward justice.”
This means addressing the current problems of the
uses to which power will be put. We live in an era
where real human problems are not resolved by the
power of reason and the use of the massive material
and spiritual resources of the nation. Rather, there
has arisen a paradigm that mobilizes militaiy might,
money and radical Christian evangelism, tliroi^h an
ideology that conseives resoui'ces for the few and
excludes the many by its control of public policy A
memorial to Dr. King and his movement would call
that philosophy its direction and its result into ques
tion.
This finally raises another question about framing
the King Memorial in an authentic way By giving
officialdom its due, but by having anothei- event that
invokes the blessings of Africa, invites the presence
and voices of his staff and his colleagues in the
breadth of the dvil rights movement and mingles
Ihem with locked-out peoples of aU races.
That is my vision of how a Memorial to Dr. King and
the hundreds of thousands of those whose maix;hing
feet caused Jefferson and Lincoln to look oiu- way
should finally achieve its authenticity And it will not
be so imtil it is suffused with that history and that
spirit.
RON WAIJERS is the Distinguished leadership Scholar.
Director of the African American leadership Institute and
Professor of Government and Politics at the University of
Maryland College Park.
Will Prince Georges County, Md., become another Compton?
WUl Prince Georges Coxmty
Md. Become another
Compton?
By Harry C. Alford
NNPA Columnist
“BEYOND
RHETORIC”
THE
There is c^ainly a coi-rela-
tion between race and eco
nomics when it comes to com
munities within the United
States. A moderate working-
dass White community will
change into an upper middle
dass Black community It
will be prestigious for a while
and then it will be targeted
by bad policy and over the
years erosion starts to sit in
and then crime invades its
core. The crime gets so bad
that property values start
dedining and the quality of
life becomes pitiful. In a few
decades you have what is
known as a “golden ghetto”.
The final act is drug infesta
tion. Why does this happen?
As my relatives emigrated
frem Louisiana to Los
Angeles in the 40s and 50s, I
saw communities make the
above transition. There was
“Lovely Compton.” Twoofmy
cousins integrated Fremont
High. Another cousin helped
integrate Washington High.
My Aunt Mary and her clan
integrated Inglewood. Aunt
Lula and her dan bou^t a
house at Hoover and Florence
across the street fiom a syna
gogue. Decades later the
Rodney King Riot would
erupt three blocks down the
street. These once fashion
able places are now just dots
on a map of an urban area
made infamous in the great
film “Boys in the Hood.”
When I was discharged
fixDm the Army in 1974,
Pi-octer & Gamble assigned-
me to Detroit. Beautiful
neighborhoods hke Rosedale
Park and Palmer Woods were
heading south with a bullet -
a whole lot of bullets. It hit
bottom with the eruptions of
the inevitable drug wars.
The most prestigious Black
coxmty in the United States
today is the D.C. suburb of
Prince Georges Covmty,
Maryland. It has the hipest
black family income in the
nation, which makes it a tar
get for bad pohey to be fol
lowed by crime and drug
infestation. Keep in mind
this is the same place where
pro-segregationist and presi
dential hopeful George
Wallace was shot while
addressing his base. His
base, White and very anti-
Black, was set on preventing
any race mixing and integra
tion. The Fair Housing Act
and affirmative action for
high paying federal jobs
changed all of that.
Recently, I read a few stud
ies that showed the General
Services Administration
Qandlord for federal offices)
had a systematic way of
redlining Prince Georges
County from any regional
development. Its affect after
decades was starting to take
its toll. The majority of work
ers had to travel out of the
cormty Thirty-five percent of
all Beltway travelers are
commuters from Prince
Georges Cormty A county
that is overly residential and
laddr^ in business vitality -
retail, industrial and office
space. I told two
Congressional officials based
in the county that I feared a
downward transition like
Inglewood or Compton was
starting to set in. They both
assured me that nothing of
its kind would happen in
Prince Georges Coxmty
So let’s take a quick look.
My two sons go to the
University of Maryland,
which is in Prince G-eorges
Coxmty UMD consistently
has one of the hipest crimes
rates among U.S. colleges.
Last semester, a fellow ath
lete of theirs answered his
doimdoor. Ahit man pushed
his way in and put a gxm to
his head and said ‘You didn’t
deliver the stash and now you
have to go.” It took him 10
long minutes to convince Ihe
.assassin that it was his I'oom-
mate or someone else he was
after. He moved out of the
dorm but was never the
same. He is leavir^ at the
end of this semester.
Two blocks down the street
fiom my boys, a home was
recently invaded by robbei-s.