Breast cancer deadlier for blacks Why? Report blames racism, says mammograms, care may be inferior
rican-American women in Chicago are much more likely than white women to die of breast cancer, and the racial gap is widening, according to a new study that calls the disparity "morally wrong, medically unacceptable and reversible."
Just 10 years ago, black and white women in Chicago died at the same rate from breast cancer. But the most recent figures available, for 2003, show the mortality rate among black women was 73 percent higher, researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital's Urban Health Institute report in a study being released today. Nationwide, the gap was about half that -- 37 percent.
The disparity in death rates appears to be the result of racism, "and it appears to be institutionalized," said Alan Channing, chief executive of Sinai Health System. In Chicago, white women are diagnosed with breast cancer at a rate 15 percent higher than the rate in black women.
