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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 2017)
Page 2 The Skanner September 27, 2017 ® Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now Debunking the Myths Around Sickle Cell Disease Bernie Foster Founder/Publisher Bobbie Dore Foster Executive Editor I Jerry Foster Advertising Manager Christen McCurdy News Editor Patricia Irvin Graphic Designer Melanie Sevcenko Reporter Monica J. Foster Seattle Office Coordinator Susan Fried Photographer 2017 MERIT AWARD WINNER The Skanner Newspaper, es- tablished in October 1975, is a weekly publication, published every Wednesday by IMM Publi- cations Inc. 415 N. Killingsworth St. P.O. Box 5455 Portland, OR 97228 Telephone (503) 285-5555 Fax: (503) 285-2900 www.TheSkanner.com The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Association and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. ©2017 The Skanner. All rights re served. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission prohibited. Local News Pacific NW News World News Opinions Jobs, Bids Entertainment Community Calendar LOCAL NEWS BRIEFS ebo m me • nts TheSkannerNews o k • learn • co in y o u r c o m m u n n F ac it Updated daily. d ay ! • L i ke u s o n the United States, sickle cell disease (SCD) is con- sidered rare, because it affects only about 100,000 people nationwide. As such, not many people in the U.S. are aware of what SCD is, or if they are aware, they have limited experience with the disease. As with any disease, low awareness can spur myths and misperceptions and make it more difficult for those af- fected to obtain the care and support they need. Through- out my career, I’ve been asked a number of questions about SCD — many of which are common myths. In this article, I will share some of the more common myths, in an effort to separate out the facts from fiction. Sickle cell disease is a “Black” disease. Myth! It’s true that in the U.S. more than 90 percent of people living with SCD are of African descent. SCD occurs in one out of every 365 Afri- can American births. How- ever, it’s not exclusive to this patient population. SCD is also found in people of Indian, Middle Eastern, Hispanic, and Mediterranean ethnicities. Sickle cell disease is conta- gious. Myth! You cannot “catch” SCD — it is a genetically inher- info@theskanner.com to y • Opinion Dr. Kevin Williams Chief Medical Officer, Pfizer Rare Disease Unit ited condition (passed down from parent to child). For a child to inherit SCD, both par- ents must carry the sickle cell trait (or have the disease) and each must pass the sickle cell gene to the child. “ SCD occurs in one out of ev- ery 365 Afri- can American births A person with the sickle cell trait will automatically develop sickle cell disease. Myth! Sickle cell trait is dif- ferent from SCD. Just because a person carries the sickle cell trait does not mean they will have the disease. What’s the difference? When a per- son has only one copy of the sickle cell gene, he or she will have sickle cell trait. Someone with SCD will have two copies of the sickle cell gene. A person with sickle cell trait can, however, pass the disease on to his or her child, if the other parent also has trait. That’s why testing for sickle cell trait or disease is incredibly important. Sick- le cell disease (and sickle cell trait) can be diagnosed through a simple blood test. In developed countries, like the U.S., babies are now rou- tinely screened at birth to de- termine if they carry the trait or have the disease. People with sickle cell dis- ease abuse pain medication. Myth! Studies have shown that there is no increased substance abuse in patients with SCD. The most common symptom of SCD is excruciat- ing, debilitating pain that of- ten does not respond to over- the-counter medications and needs opioids to provide re- lief. Over time, the body be- comes used to the opioids—ul- timately leading to high doses being required to manage SCD pain. This need for high doses of opioids (which may not even provide complete relief from the pain), has un- fortunately led to the percep- tion that these patients are “drug-seeking.” A baby born with SCD will die before reaching adult- hood. Myth! Until the 1990s, SCD was considered a life-threat- ening condition as many chil- dren born with the disease did not live to adulthood. In developed countries, like the U.S., this is no longer true, with the majority of children living to adulthood, thanks to advances in SCD care. However, the life expectan- cy of someone with SCD in the US is only between 40 and 60 years, compared to average U.S. life expectancy of 78.74 years. There is still much more work to do to improve the outcomes of people with SCD in the US and worldwide, particularly in underdevel- oped countries. Although the disease was identified more than 100 years ago, there are still very few medicines avail- able to help patients or ad- dress SCD symptoms. While there has been recent prog- ress in this area, more still needs to be done. At Pfizer Rare Disease, we are work- ing tirelessly to bring safe, effective treatment options to those in need. One way to help address this is to encourage participa- tion in clinical trials. To date, there have been several chal- lenges in securing adequate participation of African Americans in clinical trials, which has been one of the key barriers to the development of new SCD medications. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com Don’t Let ‘45’ Take Credit for President Obama’s Economy T he income, poverty and health insurance data released by the Census Bureau on September 13 confirms what many of us already knew. President Obama’s last year was one of economic improvement for many individuals. The medi- an income rose from $57,230 in 2015 to $59,039 in 2016, an increase of 3.2 percent. Black income rose 5.4 percent, from $37,364 in 2015 to $39,400 in 2016, while White income rose from $63,745 to $65,041, an increase of two percent. The income gap narrowed very slightly, with African Americans making 58 per- cent of White earnings in 2015 and 60 percent of White earnings in 2016. This income ratio typically hovers around 60 percent, and this situation has not improved, since 1967. Despite an absolute improve- ment in incomes, the racial in- come disparity remains. Fewer than 1 in 10 whites earned less than $15,000 per year, compared to 20 percent of African Americans at that low earning level. While 18 percent of Whites earned less than $25,000 a year, fully one-third of African Amer- icans earned so little. At the same time, while 7.4 percent of Whites earned more than $200,000 a year, only 2.8 per- cent of African Americans Julianne Malveaux NNPA Columnist had similarly high earnings. At the top, there was signif- icant improvement for Af- rican Americans—we didn’t cross the 1 percent line on high earning until 1997, and “ were 800,000 fewer African Americans in poverty in 2016 than in 2015. That’s good news. Child poverty was also overwhelming. With 15.1 per- cent of White children living in poverty there were nearly twice as many Black children living in poverty at 29.5 per- cent. Among elders, 8 percent of White seniors were poor, compared to 18.5 percent of African American seniors. And when Black women head- ed households, 34.2 percent This gap will not be closed unless there is some intervention, some form of reparations, or some spe- cial program that will empower African Americans now our percentage has more than doubled. Still, it would take hundreds of years, at the rate we are going, to close the gap with Whites. With incomes as low as they are, it is unsurprising to find African Americans more heavily represented among the poor than Whites, but again, President Obama’s last year in office saw a real drop in the poverty level. The pov- erty rate dropped from 13.5 percent in 2015 to 12.7 percent in 2016, and the Black poverty rate dropped from 24.1 per- cent to 22.0 percent. There of those households lived in poverty. While these numbers make a clear case that President Obama improved the situ- ation for all Americans, it is also clear that his unwill- ingness or inability to target programs toward the African American poor maintained the size of the income gap, and maintained the fact that African Americans experi- ence twice as much poverty as Whites, earning only 60 percent of the incomes that Whites do. This gap will not be closed unless there is some intervention, some form of reparations, or some special program that will empower African Americans. If that didn’t happen in the Obama administration, it is unlikely to happen in during the cur- rent one. President Obama’s singular success, of course, was health care. More than 93 percent of Whites, 92 percent of Asian Americans, 89.5 percent of African Americans and 84 percent of Hispanics had health care in 2016, continu- ing an upward trend that be- gan in 2011 with the introduc- tion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Of course, Repub- licans have promised to “re- peal and replace” Obamacare. They have been unsuccessful, because so many Americans like the program and use it, even though it has flaws. The program should be tweaked, but not replaced, but we’ll see what happens in coming months. Despite improvements in income data, too many Amer- icans aren’t feeling the im- provements. That’s how “45” was able to manipulate people into believing that they were worse off than they had ever been, and that he was going to improve their quality of life. Read the rest of this commentary at TheSkanner.com nt • lo c a l n e w s • eve
