Khalid Simply Says

  Disparities in Cancer Care for Black Americans Inequality in our society can be measured by wealth, educational level, opportunities, and other factors including healthcare. Inequality in cancer care for Black Americans was the subject of one-page graphic presentation in the “Clinical Oncology Update” section of the New England Journal of Medicine few weeks ago. The article titled “By the Numbers: Racial / Ethnic Disparities” is the subject of this blog. According to the American Cancer Society’s estimate, there will be 1.89 million new cases and 608,00 deaths due to cancer in the USA this year. The good news is that the death rate from cancer has continued to decline in the United States. From 1991 to 2018, the overall cancer death rate has fallen 31% . The bad news is that Black Americans have not benefited from this decline as much as other citizens have. While the decrease in the death rate is mostly due to decrease in smoking, it is also due to the discovery, appr...

Genes are Here   “ W hich Gene  is here ? I only know one Jean , ”   he   said .       “N o not that Jean and not the jeans that you wear. I mean the genes that make up  your  DNA. ”   They are here ,  I said.   In the field of medicine, the 21 st  century is going to be gene therapy century. Genomics like other “omics”, is a field that deals with individual genes or the whole genome. Gene therapies are medical treatments that are based on abnormalities in the genes. These genetic defects can be inherited such as sickle cell disease or acquired such as cancer.    Today, we are at the cusp of making many of such  diseases, a  thing of the past.   Until the turn of the century, most of the medicines were made by chemists by mixing chemicals. Such a toxic brew of chemicals was first tested on live cells in a petri dish, then on little mice, followed by bigg...