That’s pitifully inadequate, considering lung cancer kills almost twice as many women as breast cancer does.
One of the main reasons for the lack of funding: Lung cancer carries a stigma.
Did you eat red meat?
Have unsafe sex?"
But when she’s diagnosed with lung cancer, often the first question is “Did you smoke?”
It drives me crazy!
And that racial gap is only getting worse.
This racial disparity exists for almost every cancer.
Sometimes I cry; other times I feel paralyzed, because the problem is so big.
So even if a woman gets a mammogram, what happens if they find a mass?
How can you tell her she has to choose between getting the necessary treatment or feeding her kids?
Another part of it is cultural: Some black people have a historically rooted mistrust of doctors.
For them, “clinical trial” is a charged term.
Yet only about 3 percent of oncologists and 6 percent of medical students are black.
I’m doing what I canspeaking in community centers and churches and fighting for workplace diversity.
That’s too long and too much.
I want to make cancer-drug trials shorter, smaller and less expensive.
Normally, if a woman discovers a mass, she gets it removed immediately, then gets chemo.
But that tumor is one of the only indicators we have to see if a drug works.
Removing it first precludes us from learning anything at all about how it might respond to therapy.
So, in my trial we’ve reversed the order of treatment: chemo first, surgery second.
In the future, researchers will conduct trials to determine when we can avoid surgery altogether.
Change can be scary, but it’s too risky to stand still.
Demand change from doctors and drug companies.
Always ask, “Is there something better?”
That’s how we get the culture to move more quickly.
And if you’ve been recently diagnosed, join a clinical trial if one is right for you.
Only 3 to 5 percent of eligible adults do, and that’s not enough.
I find that absolutely maddening!
We have all this good cancer data, and we’e not using it.
It’s just sitting there, untapped.
But I’m hoping to help change that.
