This is something that should cause us, as black people, to seriously consider issues of health.

A mutation BCRA1 gene is known to increase the likelihood of breast cancer in women. A study was recently done that look at the prevalence of this mutation and the results were enough to raise some eyebrows. The study looked at women of different ethnicities with breast cancer. What it was looking for was the percentage of women with breast cancer who also had this mutation. In Hispanic women, 3.5 percent of patients had this mutation. 8.3 percent of Ashkenazi Jewish women had this mutation. 2.2 percent of non-Hispanic white women and 0.5 percent of Asian-American women also had this mutation.

Overall, black women, right now, only comprise 1.3 percent of cancer patients with this mutation. However, among those diagnosed before age 35, 16.7 percent of those studied had the mutation. This clearly shows that there is real risk, of which black folks should be concerned.

This study also highlights the reality of medical racism. Consider the words of the following two researchers:

“Traditionally, studies have focused on white women,” said Esther John, a research scientist at the cancer center and lead author of the study. “There is a great need to study racial minorities in the United States.”

Although testing for the BRCA1 mutation has been available for a decade, it has not been applied much to minority populations, said Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade, professor of medicine and human genetics at the University of Chicago.

“A lot of young women die of breast cancer because they’re not even aware that lump in their breast could be cancer,” said Olopade, who wrote an editorial accompanying the paper in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association. “If you know you’re at high risk, you’ll get that evaluated.”

Honestly, the first woman I ever knew with breast cancer was a white woman who I considered the salt of the earth. So, at least viscerally, I know the toll this disease can take on women and their families (Note: men can develop breast cancer, too, and we need to be diligent, as well). However, it is clear that the research of this disease needs to be better funded and more comprehensive to be more inclusive of patients of all colors.

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