From: The Progressive

We should cheer first lady Michelle Obama for taking on childhood obesity as a personal crusade. The attention she is paying to it should help all our kids, and Black and Latino kids will likely be especially touched by her influence.

The reality is stark. Nationally, 32 percent of children and adolescents are obese or overweight. That’s one in every three.

The prevalence of obesity among children 6-11 has more than doubled in the last 20 years to 20 percent.

The obesity rate among adolescents 12-19 has more than tripled, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For Black and Latino children, the numbers are epidemic. Black youth have a 51 percent higher prevalence of obesity, while Latinos have a 21 percent higher obesity prevalence than whites, according to the CDC.

“The surge in obesity in this country is nothing short of a public health crisis, and it’s threatening our children, it’s threatening our families,” Michelle Obama said while announcing her plan.

She is absolutely right about that, and I hope she has a huge impact for millions of children and youth in the country.

And for Black and Latino families, her impact may be greatest.

First off, Michelle Obama is an educated, professional Black woman with two children. Never before have tens of millions of Black and Latino moms had such a mirror-image role model. Many will identify with her and her struggles before moving to the White House to make good choices for her own daughters, a point she readily admitted.

“I knew that I had to do something, that I had to lead our family to a different way,” she said.

Black and Latina mothers will recognize themselves in this statement. They are usually the leaders in their families when it comes to issues related to health and nutrition. Their kids will be better off if they start implementing changes similar to those the first lady introduced to her family — less TV time, more fresh fruits, more physical activity, less fast food.

And let’s not underestimate the influence the two first daughters may have. I can hear it now: Moms all around the country telling their kids, “You know, Sasha and Malia love carrots and broccoli.” In our times, nothing rivals celebrity and pop culture influences. And no group is more easily influenced than kids.

The three tenets of Michelle Obama’s plan — access, convenience and affordability — hit at the heart of what keeps many Black and Latino families from eating more healthily. With millions of us living in urban areas, our access to fresh produce on a daily basis is unreliable. We often peruse entire produce isles filled with nearly rotten fruits and vegetables.

There are no weekly farmers’ markets in most urban neighborhoods. And if we do venture to a high-end supermarket in the loftier parts of town, we spend one week’s worth of grocery money on two bags of overpriced staples.

The first lady has chosen to tackle an issue that has been plaguing the country as a whole, but that has stubbornly embedded itself in Black and Latino families. Her leadership in this area will go a long way in encouraging our families to make the changes needed to safeguard our children’s immediate health and, ultimately, their future.

Popularity: 4% [?]

From: The Atlantic Wire

Congressman Joseph Cao of Louisiana was the lone Republican to vote for Saturday’s health care reform legislation, which passed by a slim margin. Cao, the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress, comes from a liberal district he won after his Democrat opponent succumbed to scandal. Why did Cao vote “aye” on the legislation, when every other Republican rejected it? Speculation has focused on the specifics of his district (he is up for re-election next year), his relationship with the White House, and the intricacies of Vietnamese-American politics.
Needed to Win Re-Election Steve Benen thinks the vote makes sense given Cao’s liberal district. “Rumor has it that Cao is severely unpopular in conservative circles right now, but the context of his particular predicament matters. Cao barely won his election in a district that President Obama won with 75% support. Realistically, the only reason Cao was successful was that the Democratic incumbent was under criminal indictment, was on video accepting bribes, and had cash found in his freezer when FBI agents raided his home. Running for re-election next year, after voting against President Obama’s health care reform package, would have proven exceedingly difficult. Cao’s voting record makes him the single most moderate House GOP member.”
Changing Vietnamese-American Politics The Economist’s Democracy in America explains. “Vietnamese-Americans are one of the few immigrant demographics among whom Republicans do very well, because of their legacy of anti-communism.” But this is changing, in part because they are usually a minority proportion of Congressional districts. So Vietnamese-American politicians must appeal to other minority groups — typically Latino or African-American — for a chance at political viability. Cao, the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress, could signify this new trend. “Any Vietnamese-American candidate who wants to win an election is going to have to make himself viable to the other minority populations who inhabit heavily Vietnamese-American districts. [...] But the Republican party has no room for any policy compromises that might play well to those voters.”
‘Bought Off’ By Obama Huffington Post’s Michael J.W. Stickings insists Cao voted yes “because President Obama basically bought him off” by promising to address problems in Cao’s district. Stickings writes, “But other states face ‘critical health care issues.’ Why shouldn’t they get similar presidential attention? Because Cao was the one Republican who could be bought off? The thing is, the Democrats didn’t even need Cao’s vote for passage.”
A Symbolic Vote The Hill’s Molly K. Hooper reports that Cao waited to cast his vote until the moment when it no longer mattered how he voted. “Once the tally board lit up 218-213, however, Cao was free to put his congressional voting card in electronic key slot and cast an ‘aye’ vote for the bill his party has dubbed ‘Pelosi’s healthcare bill.’ He did it quickly, and quietly, while the rest of the chamber was applauding for having cleared the vote threshold needed for passage, the vulnerable Republican was recorded as voting for the sweeping $1.2 trillion measure.”
Surprise to GOP Leadership Think Progress’s Igor Volsky suggests Republican leaders didn’t foresee Cao’s vote. “At the ‘House Call’ tea party protest on Capitol Hill this week, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) pledged to the right-wing activists: ‘Be assured not one Republican will vote for this bill.’ Cao’s vote must have surprised Cantor. Cao has previously been touted by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) once as ‘the future’ of the GOP. The White House had reportedly ‘been in constant contact’ with him prior to the vote. ‘Rahm is going all in to get him,’ one aide told Roll Call, referring to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.”

Popularity: 6% [?]

From: MicEvHill.com

The House of Representatives has passed a landmark health care reform bill that would require every person in the United States to purchase health insurance, establish a new entitlement to federal health care affordability subsidies for lower income individuals and families, and enact significant new consumer reforms to protect the rights and benefits of the insured. The House passed the measure late in the evening on Saturday, November 7, 2009, by a vote of 220-215.

For the most part, the House-passed health care reform bill would provide legal immigrants with the same access to its benefits that U.S. citizens would enjoy, while barring federal health care affordability subsidies to persons who are not lawfully present in the United States. Unlike the health care reform bill that has been reported by the Senate Committee on Finance, the House-passed measure defies the wishes of President Barack Obama by permitting illegal immigrants to purchase health insurance products with their own funds.

Immigration restrictionists inside and outside of Congress are extraordinarily critical of the House-passed bill’s immigration provisions. They have excoriated the bill because it does not extend to health insurance benefits an existing five-years-after-entry bar for legal immigrants who seek access to public benefit programs. They also have been extremely critical of the bill for permitting illegal immigrants to use their own funds to purchase health insurance products that are listed on government-run health insurance exchanges. And, while the bill would impose a citizenship and immigration status verification regime on individuals before they could access federal health insurance affordability subsidies, immigration restrictionists complain that the regime is too weak and that it should be extended to all aspects of health insurance.

Outcome Was in Doubt
For much of the day, the outcome of Saturday’s House floor action was in considerable doubt. That doubt existed, in part, because of a deal that the House Democratic Leadership made late Friday night with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to permit a floor amendment to be offered to the bill that would bar federal funding for abortion. The deal gave pro-choice advocates in Congress heartburn, with a number of them threatening to vote against the bill on final passage. Another significant reason for doubt about the bill’s prospects throughout the day on Saturday was the fear that House Republicans would use procedural motions available to them to make immigration changes to the bill that would render it unacceptable to members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC). In the end, the GOP Motion to Recommit the bill did not involve immigration issues. And while pro-choice Members remained angry about the deal cut by the House Democratic Leadership on abortion, they did not carry out their threats to vote against the bill.

Saturday’s House floor action took place in connection with H.R. 3962, the “Affordable Health Care for America Act”. House floor debate on the measure took up most of the day, beginning at about 10:00 am EST and continuing through about 11:15 pm EST.

Now that the full House of Representatives has passed its version of health care reform legislation, the next step in the process is for the full Senate to take up its version of the measure. That could occur sometime in the next few weeks.

Negotiations Over Eligibilty of Undocumented Aliens to Purchase Health Insurance With Their Own Funds
As last week began, the biggest unresolved immigration issue in connection with the House health care reform bill was the question of whether the bill should include an Obama-inspired provision that would bar illegal immigrants from using their own funds to purchase health insurance products that are listed on health insurance exchanges. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) finally decided the day before the House took up the bill that it would not contain such a provision. The Speaker’s decision, when coupled with a deal that was reached that same night to permit pro-life Democrats to offer an anti-abortion floor amendment to the measure, removed the two biggest obstacles that had emerged to bringing the Health Care reform bill before the full House of Representatives for its consideration.

Summary of Immigration- and Refugee-Related Provisions
As passed by the House, H.R. 3962 is a combination of compromises brokered by the House Democratic Leadership and provisions that were contained in bills produced by three House Committees: the House Committee on Ways and Means, House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and House Committee on Education and Labor.
The following summarizes the treatment of noncitizens under the measure –
Health Insurance Mandate. H.R. 3962 would require all residents (with the exception of some nonimmigrants) to maintain health insurance plans and subject those who do not adhere to the mandate to tax penalties. Even undocumented aliens would be subject to the mandate under H.R. 3962.
Affordability Credits. H.R. 3962 would provide “affordability credits” to persons who are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but who cannot afford to purchase health insurance on their own. Legal immigrants would be eligible for affordability tax credits, but under section 347 of the bill, aliens who are not lawfully present and nonimmigrants would not be eligible for such credits. The House bill contains several exceptions to the bar on nonimmigrant eligibility for affordability tax credits. T, U, V and K Visa holders would be eligible for affordability credits, despite the fact that they are nonimmigrants.
Citizenship and Immigration Status Verification. Section 341(b)(4) of H.R. 3962 would establish a verification regime, based on the regime in the recently enacted Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA), for persons who seek to access affordability credits. All persons, including United States citizens, would be required to undergo verification of their citizenship or immigration status. Under the procedure, a person seeking affordability credits would make a declaration of United States citizenship or of lawful presence. Persons declaring that they are citizens would undergo one verification process. Persons claiming to be lawfully present in the United States would undergo a different process.The bill also includes a provision that would subject persons seeking coverage in the high risk pools that are established by the measure to a citizenship and immigration status verification procedure.
Health Insurance Exchanges. H.R. 3962 would permit all immigrants to participate in the state health insurance exchanges created by the bill, including those not lawfully present.
Five-Year Waiting Period for Medicaid and Medicare. H.R. 3962 would maintain current law regarding the eligibility of aliens for Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) unchanged.
Reaffirmation of Bar on Providing Medicaid or CHIP Benefits to Illegal Immigrants. Section 1787 of H.R. 3962 would provide that nothing in Title VII of the bill shall change current prohibitions against Federal Medicaid and CHIP payments under titles XIX and XXI of the Social Security Act on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States.

Views of the Pro-Immigrant Advocacy Community
The pro-immigrant advocacy community wanted to see a number of changes to H.R. 3962 in order to make health insurance more accessible to immigrants. However, in the end, the community focused its efforts on trying to keep the Obama proposal to bar illegal immigrants from using their own funds to purchase health insurance products out of the House bill, as well as preparing to fight what turned out to be a non-existent immigration-related GOP motion to recommit relating to immigrants.

Outlook
Now that the House of Representatives has passed its version of health care reform legislation, the ball moves to the Senate, where immigration is expected to be a hotly contested issue. There is no reliable word on when the Senate will take up its version of health care reform legislation.

Popularity: 7% [?]

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY
H.R. 3962 — Affordable Health Care for America Act
(Rep. Dingell, D-Michigan, and 6 cosponsors)

The Administration strongly supports House passage of H.R. 3962, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, a bill that represents a critical milestone in the effort to reform our health care system. H.R. 3962 will provide needed insurance reforms for Americans with insurance, expand coverage for those who do not have insurance, lower costs for families and businesses, and begin to reduce the Nation’s deficit. It meets the President’s criteria for health insurance reform: it assures that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care that is there when they need it and does so without adding a dime to the deficit.

This legislation is the product of unprecedented cooperation and countless hours of hard work by Members of the House of Representatives who share the President’s conviction that the Nation cannot wait another year for health insurance reform. They have forged a strong consensus that represents an historic step forward.

The House legislation includes critical reforms to the insurance industry, so that Americans will no longer have to worry that they will be denied coverage, or that their coverage will be dropped or watered down when they need it most. It covers virtually all Americans and ensures that all Americans with health insurance are protected against high out-of-pocket spending. The Administration is pleased that the bill includes a public health insurance option offered in an exchange. As the President has said throughout this process, a public option that competes with private insurers is one of the best ways to ensure the choice and competition that are so badly needed in today’s market.

The House bill also includes important health care delivery system reforms, and would extend the solvency of Medicare’s hospital insurance trust fund. Its Medicare and Medicaid policies promote integrated care, quality care, and primary care. It invests in research on the most effective treatments, prevention, and the health care workforce. It also makes critical improvements for Medicare beneficiaries including closing the coverage gap in the Medicare drug benefit known as the donut hole. In addition, it provides new options for long-term care. Moreover, the House bill is fully paid for and will help to reduce the deficit in the long-term.

This bill provides the necessary health reforms that the Administration seeks – affordable, quality care within reach for the tens of millions of Americans who do not have it today, and stability and security for the hundreds of millions who do. The Administration appreciates the hard work of the House on this bill, which contributes to transforming the health care system. The Administration looks forward to continuing to work with the Congress on this legislation and urges quick action on this landmark bill.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Investigators looking into a massacre at the nation’s largest military base pieced through the gruesome scene Friday morning and raided the home of the alleged gunman, searching for answers.
Military officials at Fort Hood also faced another, equally difficult task: notifying the families of the 13 people killed Thursday inside a military processing center.
“Today on Fort Hood, we will observe a day of mourning, remembering in our thoughts and prayers the victims of this incident,” said Col. John Rossi, deputy commanding general at the post.
The alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a psychiatrist who worked in a hospital at the post, is blamed for the deaths of 12 soldiers and one civilian, military officials said.
Another 30 people were wounded; 28 of them required hospitalization. About half required surgery, and all were in stable condition Friday morning, said Col. Steven Braverman, hospital commander at Fort Hood.
In news interviews Friday, the post’s commander, Lt. Gen. Bob Cone, said witnesses have reported that the gunman yelled “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great” — during the rampage. Cone said investigators had not confirmed that.
President Obama, in remarks Friday morning, cautioned against “jumping to conclusions” about what had triggered “one of the worst mass shootings ever to take place on an American military base.”
He ordered that flags at the White House and other federal buildings be flown at half staff until Wednesday, which is Veterans Day. “This is a modest tribute to those who lost their lives, even as many were preparing to risk their lives for their country,” the president said.
“It’s also a recognition of the men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect our safety and uphold our values. We honor their service, we stand in awe of their sacrifice, and we pray for the safety of those who fight and for the families of those who have fallen.”
He said he met with FBI Director Robert Mueller and other relevant agencies to discuss the investigation. And he promised that his administration will provide updates.
The police officer who shot the gunman, ending the massacre, was among the wounded. Officer Kimberly Munley of the Fort Hood Police Department “just happened very fortunately to be very close to the incident scene,” Cone told CNN’s “American Morning.”
She shot the gunman four times and was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with him.
“Really a pretty amazing and aggressive performance by this police officer,” Cone said.
Exact details of what happened remain unclear. Investigators were looking into whether some soldiers may have been shot accidentally by others trying to shoot the gunman. Investigators are analyzing “all the rounds, the trajectories, all the weapons, all the shots, where they came from,” Rossi said. “That will be determined by the investigators.”
Are you there? Share your stories, photos and videos
The central question they’re investigating is what may have cause a member of the military to shoot his comrades — particularly one trusted with helping others achieve a healthier mental state.
“He took care of soldiers with behavioral health problems and also evaluated people who had disability evaluations,” Braverman told reporters Friday morning.
Asked whether Hasan, 39, had seemed adequately prepared for his job, Braverman responded, “We had no indication otherwise.”
Hasan had received deployment orders, military officials said. There were conflicting reports as to whether he was to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Since 2001, Hasan had been telling his family that he wanted to get out of the military but was unsuccessful, said a spokeswoman for his cousin, Nader Hasan. She added that he told his family that he had been taunted after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the spokeswoman said.
A police SWAT team and FBI agents raided Hasan’s apartment early Friday.
CNN obtained surveillance video from a 7-Eleven convenience store in Fort Hood that shows a man — who according to the store owner is Hasan — at the cashier’s counter about 6:20 a.m. Thursday, about seven hours before the shooting. The man is dressed in traditional Arab garb.
Hasan came in for coffee and hash browns most mornings, the store owner said.
Nader Hasan issued a statement late Thursday on behalf of their family, saying they were “shocked” by the shootings. “We are filled with grief for the families of today’s victims,” the statement says. “Our family loves America. We are proud of our country, and saddened by today’s tragedy.”

Popularity: 8% [?]

From: CNN

When she was about 8, Frida Sepulveda developed dark folds of skin around her neck. It’s a well-known warning sign of type 2 diabetes.
Frida’s mother, Blanca Sepulveda, who has watched other family members struggle with diabetes and obesity, was “devastated” to see her daughter experience similar health problems.
Now at age 11, Frida is about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs around 180 pounds, her mother said. Despite a high body weight for her age and height, Frida does not seem to have additional symptoms of diabetes — or any other major health concerns — but her parents are trying to reverse the weight problem Frida has had since infancy.
The San Diego, California, family is among a disproportionately high number of Latino-American families with overweight and obese children. According to the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health, 16.6 percent of Latino high school students were obese and 18.1 percent were overweight. The corresponding national averages for high school students were 13.3 percent obese and 15.8 percent overweight.
It’s an epidemic that shocked and saddened Lorena Garcia, a chef who appears on Univision and Telemundo.
“I travel all over the country to the major Hispanic festivals and I realized that 90 to 95 percent of the kids that I saw at the festivals were overweight,” said Garcia, who established the Big Chef Little Chef program to teach Latino youth healthy cooking and eating habits. Watch Garcia interact with her fans »
The problem is caused by a wide range of cultural, social, economic, environmental and possibly genetic factors. Experts agree it is an uphill battle to solve.
“You can’t just try to change someone’s behavior necessarily without trying to change their environment,” said Dr. Michael Goran, director of the University of Southern California’s Childhood Obesity Research Center. How can childhood obesity be reduced?
Blanca Sepulveda, 38, believes her own upbringing in Mexico before coming to the United States in junior high school ultimately contributed to her daughter’s weight problem.
“The way I was raised … you don’t [leave] the dinner table until you’re done with all your food. That’s instilled in you,” Sepulveda said.
Back in Mexico, she said, the food was healthier and fresher, and she didn’t drink soda. But she still applied that mentality to her own children, who were born and raised in the United States, where sugar-laden and fattening foods are widely available.
The Sepulveda family’s story is similar to that of other immigrants who are healthier than their American-born children: Those born outside the United States are less likely to be obese than native-born children, said Luisa Franzini, Ph.D., of the University of Texas School of Public Health.
Despite the trends, more study is necessary to determine whether American acculturation is entirely to blame for poor diets among Latinos, an expert says.
Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, a nutrition and public health professor with the University of Connecticut, wrote in the June 2009 issue of Journal of the American Diabetic Association that adaptation to U.S. society may explain, to some degree, “deterioration of dietary quality” and the risks of diabetes and other chronic diseases. However, he wrote, it’s still not completely clear.
Healthy food harder to come by
Economic factors play a major role for many Latinos in their weight struggles.
Angelica Delgado is trying to overcome the obstacle with the Healthy Latino Families initiative, a culturally tailored nutrition and exercise program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As the Community Research Supervisor for the United Community Center, Delgado is trying to get healthy school lunches in the Bruce-Guadalupe Community School, with which she’s working on Healthy Latino Families.
About 80 percent of Bruce Guadalupe’s student body, which is 97 percent Latino, come from low-income households and therefore are eligible for reduced-price or free lunch.
Without money coming in to support the lunch program, it’s difficult to fund better quality food and equipment to ensure that it’s freshly cooked, Delgado said. For now, she hopes the fun, bilingual setting of Healthy Latino Families will teach children to make smart food choices.
The lack of availability of inexpensive, fresh, healthy food is a common for low-income populations in general, Franzini said.
Research suggests that more affluent neighborhoods have a higher availability of healthy food, she said, adding that the cost of healthy food is lower in more advantaged communities.
The community factor
Exercise also poses tricky problems for Latino children struggling with weight, as many live in disadvantaged areas may make it tough for them to play outside or walk to school.
From a physical point of view — in terms of sidewalks and litter — those areas tend to be in worse shape than an average neighborhood, Franzini said. But her research also suggests that the social component of a neighborhood affects children’s physical activity levels.
“It’s not sufficient to just clean up the neighborhood — pick up the trash and build sidewalks,” said Franzini, whose study on the impact of neighborhoods’ social characteristics was published earlier this year in the American Journal of Public Health. “It also needs to be a neighborhood where people feel safe and they feel that they can go out and walk and run and exercise and do whatever they want to do.”
To that end, Franzini’s research indicates that those Latinos living in tight-knit communities often get more exercise than those in more mixed neighborhoods.
“Having a neighborhood which is more connected, where people feel safe — I think it’s all a matter of feeling empowered in a way. And so those who feel that they have this stronger neighborhood from a social point of view, they are also more likely to be physically active,” Franzini said.
Finding solutions
Researchers and community advocates are attempting to combat the Latino youth obesity problem. But the multitude of factors makes the issue a moving target and results of interventions are mixed.
For example, about a year after a previous phase of Healthy Latino Families in Milwaukee wrapped up, children reportedly ate better and watched less television per day. Delgado said they are awaiting results from the current program, but she has seen some success already.
USC’s Goran worked with Latino teenagers over 16 weeks to improve their diets, promoting fiber-rich tortillas and altering recipes of aqua fresca so it would have less sugar. But at the end of the four months, he saw “no significant improvement in the outcomes.”
“We have to do those studies over longer time periods than we have previously done to kind of give these things a chance to work and kick in,” Goran said. “We’re … taking it one step at a time.”
And Frida’s mom, Blanca Sepulveda, said she is focusing on modifying her own behavior to help her entire family.
“It’s a retraining of the mind,” Sepulveda said. “It gets hard because you have to be an example.”

Popularity: 7% [?]

From: BET.com

The missing conversation amid all the ado about the deadly effects of the swine flu is the devastating impact it is having on Latino and African-American populations, says Juan Gonzalez of The New York Daily News.

Despite numerous briefings about the notorious H1N1 virus, city and federal health officials have been “virtually silent about” the way the pandemic is ripping through minority communities, says Gonzalez, a columnist and regular commentator on the radio program “Democracy Now.”
In an analysis last month of the first swine flu-related deaths among U.S. children, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted that one in three were among Latinos. In all, Gonzalez reports, half of the H1N1 child deaths between April and August were among African-Americans and Latinos – far greater than their representation in the overall population.
“Since then, the total number of pediatric fatalities has reached 60, but the CDC has not issued any further ethnic and racial breakdowns on the impact of the disease,” Gonzalez writes. Asked about that yesterday, an agency spokesman said a new report will be ready before the end of the week.”
Gonzalez says, “By themselves, the childhood deaths might not seem sufficient in number to raise alarm bells. But several recent studies from local health departments around the country suggest a broader trend is already underway in minority communities.”
He points to a finding by Boston’s Public Health Commission that 37 percent of all swine flu cases in that city occurred among Blacks, even though the Black population is only 25 percent. And Hispanics, who make up only 14 percent of Boston residents, account for about 33 percent of all confirmed H1N1 cases. “Even more disturbing, three of every four people hospitalized for the virus in Boston have been Black or Hispanic,” he writes.
In Chicago, he says, the Department of Public Health studied 1,500 lab-confirmed swine flu cases between late April and late July and found Blacks and Hispanics were four times more likely to be hospitalized than Whites. And in Oklahoma, African-American children in the state were being hospitalized for swine flu at three times the rate of White children and twice the rate of Native American children.

Popularity: 12% [?]

From: Washington Post

A coalition of major African-American and Latino groups announced Monday that it is stepping into the health-care debate with a six-figure ad blitz aimed at promoting reform.

A half-dozen groups — the NAACP National Voter Fund, the National Council of La Raza, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Campaign for Community Change, the United States Student Association and PowerPAC.org — are banding together to run television and print ads in four states with large minority populations: Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana and Arkansas. (Two of those four states have senators on the Finance Committee.) A spokesman for the group said the total ad buy would cost between $250,000 and $500,000.

The ads, which will run in English and Spanish, “are part of a grassroots effort to ensure that members of Congress appreciate the importance of reform to the people of color they represent,” according to a statement released by the coalition.

‘I’m not going to let special-interest politicians throw 46 million of us under the bus,” says the African-American narrator of the television ad, using a common estimate of the number of uninsured Americans.

“I’m not going to leave my grandkids’ health in the hands of insurance companies that care more about profit than they do about everyday families. And as for the politicians, tell Senator Lincoln there needs to be room for all of us on this bus,” the narrator concludes, as a young Latino woman and her child attempt to board a bus.

The coalition is pushing for a public insurance option to be included in health-care reform, an idea that faces an uncertain future in the Senate. The groups also call for all U.S. residents to be covered, even as some health-care proposals currently circulating wouldn’t cover legal immigrants.

Popularity: 8% [?]

From: Modern Medicine

Hispanics and Latinos have a unique cancer profile that means they are less likely to get the four most common cancers, but are more likely to develop cancers related to infection, according to a report published Sept. 15 by the American Cancer Society.

The study authors note that there will be as estimated 98,900 newly diagnosed cancer cases among Hispanics and Latinos in 2009, and that an estimated 18,800 will die from cancer, with lung and colorectal cancer accounting for the most deaths among men, and breast and lung cancer the most common among women.

Relative to Caucasians, Hispanics and Latinos have both lower incidence and lower death rates for the four most common cancers of the prostate, breast, lung and colorectum; but, they have higher incidence of stomach, cervix, liver and gallbladder cancer, as well as acute lymphatic leukemia, the researchers found, and they are also more likely to have a later diagnosis.

“The Hispanic/Latino population will benefit from the same approaches that are most important in reducing cancer risk in the general population,” says Vilma Cokkinides, Ph.D., the American Cancer Society’s director for risk factor surveillance, in a statement. “In addition, many Hispanics face barriers to receiving adequate, affordable health care that likely have a significant impact on prevention, early detection, and treatment of cancer.”

Popularity: 11% [?]

To educate healthcare
professionals on how to improve the Latino community’s access to HIV/AIDS
treatment and care, Minority Health Care Communications (MHCC) will hold the
National Conference on Latinos and AIDS, September 14-15th, 2009, at the New
York Academy of Medicine in New York.

It is the first time for the conference in New York, and the location is
significant, says conference Director K. Mary Hess. “We need a comprehensive
campaign that allows for tailoring to the many cultures within the Latino
Community. New York is the perfect example of a bellwether city, where trends
and needs often emerge ahead of the curve for the rest of the country.”

The continuing lack of unrestricted access to all forms of HIV prevention,
education, testing, and medical care for undocumented Latinos has created an
“invisible” parallel HIV epidemic, Hess added. “Health care providers and
leadership from the Latino AIDS community will discuss federal policy issues
that most impact the Latino community and need to be addressed so that we can
halt the continued spread of this epidemic.”

The conference will feature expert presenters from across the U.S. and will
update participants on the incidence and management of HIV/AIDS, provide
current guidelines and cutting-edge clinical methods, current research
regarding drug abuse and its connection to the epidemic, social and
psychiatric concerns of the infected patient, policy initiatives, trends and
political issues that impact patients.

Less than a year after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
recalculated the size of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and announced that there were
40 percent more new HIV infections each year than previously believed, a 2009
survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that Americans’ sense of urgency
about HIV/AIDS as a national health problem has fallen dramatically and their
concern about HIV as a personal risk has also declined, even among Latinos who
in recent years had expressed more concern than Caucasians.

In reports recently released by the CDC, the extent of the HIV/AIDS epidemic
among Latinos/Hispanics was made more apparent and reinforced the need for
immediate action. Latinos/Hispanics in the U.S. represent 15.3% (U.S. Census
Bureau) of the population but account for 19.0% of people living with AIDS and
now are reported to be 18.0 % of those living with an undiagnosed HIV
infection.(1)

To further complicate matters, while all state and local health departments
(including the District of Columbia, and 5 U.S.-dependent areas) report HIV
and AIDS diagnoses to the CDC, only 34 states that have been conducting
name-based HIV surveillance for at least four years are included in the
estimates for HIV cases (to allow for reporting adjustments and stabilization
of the data) and these figures do not reflect the true magnitude of the
epidemic. Currently states/areas like California, Connecticut, District of
Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts and Puerto Rico with large Latino
populations are not included in the surveillance data, which means that while
HIV Latino statistics are alarmingly high, they could actually be higher.

This conference brings to the forefront, the need to focus attention on how
communities of color and more specifically Latinos are disproportionately
impacted by this epidemic. HIV/AIDS has taken a tremendous toll on Latino
communities. Oscar Lopez, Director of Health Policy at the Latino Commission
on AIDS stated, “We as a community and as a country need to make HIV a
priority and ensure access to health care.”
Minority Health Care Communications, Inc., is a non profit health education
organization focused entirely on the creation and promotion of specialized
healthcare education conferences, seminars, and workshops on HIV/AIDS and
Cancer in the African-American and Latino communities.
(1) Figures for people living with AIDS and those living with an undiagnosed
HIV infection are not inclusive of HIV infection data from Puerto Rico.

SOURCE Latino Commission on AIDS

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