(NaturalNews) Cancer rates are still higher among black Americans compared to their white counterparts, according to recent statistics released by the American Cancer Society.
Rates among black men are higher by more than one-third over whites, and the rates for black women are higher by 18 percent. Blacks will represent almost 63,000 of the estimated 560,000 deaths of cancer in 2007, the ACS reports. They also will represent 153,000 of 1.7 million new cancer cases in 2007.
"African Americans have the highest death rate and shortest survival rate of any other racial or ethnic group for most cancers," according to the ACS web site.
Mike Adams, a natural health advocate and published author, accused the medical profession of misinforming the black population about the benefits of sunlight, relating this to the higher prevalence of cancer among blacks.
"Blacks die from skin cancer at rates that far exceed whites because conventional medicine strives to keep black Americans in a state of ignorance concerning the need for sunlight and Vitamin D," Adams said. "Since dark skin pigmentation blocks Vitamin D synthesis in the skin, as many as 75 percent of blacks are chronically deficient in the anticancer vitamin. The way to save the lives of millions of black Americans over the next ten years is to tell the truth about sunlight and Vitamin D."
Most forms of cancer are more prevalent in blacks versus whites on an adjusted scale of rate per 100,000 people, however the few exceptions are cancers of the breast, skin, bladder and also leukemia, the report shows.
Overall, cancer rates among blacks have decreased overall for the past century. However, lung cancer rates have increased among black women and will be again the number one killer among the combined black population. The report states that this can be associated with the higher prevalence of smoking menthol cigarettes among the black population, which offer a less harsh feel of inhalation to the throat but are possibly more dangerous to the human body than a normal cigarette. In 2003, 27 percent of all cigarette sales were menthols, but around 70 percent of menthol cigarette sales go to blacks.
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