Years of progress toward a federal ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco has been an intense game of legal maneuvering and White House delays — and two Black-led organizations are among the latest plaintiffs hoping their lawsuit forces the Biden administration’s hand. “We know that everyday it’s delayed, there are more Black children getting […]
Health
Posted inEnvironmental Justice, Health, Unsafe Water, Water Quality
Federal Mandate Targets ‘Forever Chemicals’ Driving Black Communities’ Water Woes
Belinda Joyner, a former schoolteacher in North Carolina, a state where cancer clusters born from water contamination have formed, wonders if it is enough to regulate future contamination without working to repair communities that have lived with the pollution for generations. “We’ve been saying this for so many years,” Joyner said, “and it ticks me […]
Posted inHealth, Partner Content
As Many Black Women in U.S. Abandon Hair Relaxers Linked to Cancer, Sales Climb in African Countries
This story is published in partnership with The Examination, BONews, Capital B, The Fuller Project, The Guardian and Nation Media Group. It was just before Christmas. A family tradition, the first for 8-year-old Gloria Moraa. She sat holding a broken mirror in her hands, watching her aunt paint her coily hair with chemicals that would […]
Posted inHealth, Reproductive Health
What You Need to Know About Birth Control With Misinformation on the Rise
It’s been a tricky landscape since Roe v. Wade was overturned almost two years ago, as reproductive health care has become increasingly complicated to navigate — and misinformation is on the rise. Not only are the attacks on abortion care merging with limits on the availability of infertility treatment, but the same court that reversed […]
Posted inHealth, Reproductive Health
The Attack on IVF Is a Pandora’s Box for Black Families
Maybe it was the fact that the car he bought his wife, Anya, sat so low to the ground that she could feel every bump on the road. Or the fact that where they used to live, she had to climb up and down too many stairs. Maybe, he thought, they were just doing too […]
Posted inHealth
Pressure to Ban Menthol Cigarettes Intensifies for the Biden Administration
The outrage over the Biden administration’s attempt to quietly delay the highly anticipated ban on the menthol cigarettes has transformed into intense pressure on the White House to take action. For years, throughout multiple administrations, the potential of a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco has loomed. As evidence has mounted outlining the public […]
Posted inHealth, Health Equity
Health Care Workers Are Speaking Up About the Racism in Facilities Nationwide
Headlines hit last summer about Black nursing home residents being neglected and left unbathed, without clothing, and sometimes without the medications they needed at an Alabama nursing home after a lawsuit was filed. What it outlined was an allegedly discriminatory environment at a facility toward both patients and staff, who were called “n****,” “slave girls” […]
Posted inHealth, Mental Health
Does Money Buy Happiness for Black Americans?
When Shelisa Demuth moved to a new home a few months ago, she paused as she packed to sift through boxes of old birthday cards and letters. She held onto the ones she felt were really important, and melted as she read the once stashed-away letters from her mom. The relationship had weathered many seasons. […]
Posted inHealth, Health Equity
When Algorithms and AI Perpetuate Medical Racism, Who’s Responsible?
When the coronavirus spread violently through the nation, disproportionately burdening Black communities, it was in some grim way the perfect reminder of why Dr. Noha Aboelata had founded her community clinic in East Oakland, California, more than a decade prior. In Alameda County, where she was located, Black folks were dying at a rate much […]
Posted inHealth
Could Artificial Intelligence Give Black Patients More Power in Medical Research?
Her cries ring out from behind the emergency room curtain where she’s laying. “She says she can’t breathe,” someone says in the background. Then, the voices blend together. “Just bear with us one second.” “There’s a crisis.” The video has gone viral on TikTok since its upload in 2021. The words, “This is what a […]