For years, the contributions of blacks to modern medicine ultimately have been ignored. All the while, they continue to suffer the vast majority of many fatal diseases.
For instance, Henrietta Lacks only recently has received praise for her sacrifices, thanks to Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, published this year. Previously, Lacks and her story had never been well-known. This is surprising because the legacy of the immortal HeLa cell is understood in chemotherapy, cloning, in vitro fertilization, gene mapping, polio vaccination, cancer and the effects of the atomic bomb on humans.
Shortly after scientists took samples of her tumors without consent, Lacks died of cancer complications in the colored ward of Johns Hopkins. She had the first immortal human cells, and experimenters continued culturing them after her 1951 death without her family's consent. Despite this, her family has reaped no benefits from the tests, and Henrietta's invaluable contribution wasn't publically recognized until the mayor of Atlanta did so in 1996.
Aside from researchers' exploitations, blacks have had a long-running history furthering medicine through their work as doctors and researchers spanning back to post-colonial America. Dr. Daniel Hale Williams pioneered heart surgery in 1893, and Dr. Charles Drew, a forerunner in blood research, co-founded the first Red Cross blood bank in 1940.
Because of segregation, many black doctors and researchers went mostly unaccredited for their medical ingenuity.
Ironically, blacks still suffer from many diseases now at a much higher rate. These include heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases. They also face a greater risk for ailments, such as high blood pressure, which is a leading cause of stroke.
In America, sickle cell anemia is a hereditary disease predominantly affecting blacks and Hispanics. Those who inherit sickle cell are lucky to live into their 50s, and there is still no cure. Likewise, for every white American with diabetes, 1.6 blacks are stricken with the disease. African-Americans are also much more likely to develop fatal complications or disabilities from the disease. Diabetes also has no cure.
HIV and AIDS affect African-Americans at disproportionate amounts, a rate of about six times higher than whites, according to the Center for Disease Control. The center claims nearly 48 percent of black women between the ages of 14 and 49 have the disease that causes genital herpes, and blacks overall are more than three times likelier to contract genital herpes than whites.
In spite of all the medical contributions made possible by the untimely death of Henrietta Lacks and the research of Williams and Drew, there is still a large disparity in the curing of diseases that threaten the lives of African-Americans.
Blacks make up only 13.4 percent of the American population. Although the newly signed health care reform bill will offer many blacks the opportunity to seek regular care, the prevalence of these diseases in the community necessitates a cure.
Henrietta Lacks' immortal cells have offered majority people so many opportunities at life for both those sick and those not. More than 11,000 patents have been established using her HeLa cells, yet most of the diseases they can now cure are the ones plaguing majority populations.
Likewise, although Williams pioneered heart surgery and Drew innovated blood research, blacks are more affected by heart and blood diseases, such as sickle cell, that shorten black Americans' lives.
With further research into these diseases, black Americans could relish longer and more enjoyable lives. Curing at least one of these fatal diseases would be huge for the black community.
Aisha Upton is a senior studying African American studies and Tuesday columnist for The Post. Talk health with her at au173107@ohiou.edu.
4 Opinion
Aisha Upton
