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What's New - The 2000 Saward Lecture

Expert Speaks on Why Ethnic Minorities Have a Greater Cancer Burden

Look for the edited version of the 2000 Saward Lecture to be posted on this site in the future.

(PORTLAND, Ore.) – Dr. Lovell Jones, a noted cancer researcher at the world-renowned M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, discussed the reasons for the unequal burden of cancer in America in the eleventh annual Saward Lecture, sponsored by Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research.

Jones spoke Wednesday, Sept. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the Newmark Theatre of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts. He offered his views of how we can change cancer inequality. The title of his talk was “Race, Racism and Racialism: Their Impact on Cancer Disparities in America.”

Ethnic minorities and the medically underserved are more prone to develop cancer and less likely to survive it than are white Americans. Among other facts Dr. Jones presented were that:

• African-American men have higher prostate cancer rates
  
• Asian Americans are more likely to develop stomach and liver cancer
  
• Cervical cancer is more prevalent among Hispanic and Vietnamese-American women
  
• African-American women are less likely to develop breast cancer but are less likely to survive it when it does occur
  
• Native Americans have the lowest cancer survival rates of all
  

“Recently,” said Dr. Jones, “most health disparities have been attributed to poverty and poor access to medical care. These do contribute to the problem. However, it is obvious that something else is going on.”

What’s also going on is what Dr. Jones calls “racialism,” an unconscious stereotyping and profiling of people based on social constructs — race and racial inferiority — that have no scientific basis. Dr. Jones explored the ways racialism affects the diagnosis and treatment of cancer among ethnic groups as well as the way it affects and shapes cancer research.

“Racialism is not a minority problem,” Dr. Jones argued. “It is an American problem. If left unchecked, it will become a cancer that destroys us all. So the question remains, are we willing to value equally the life and well-being of every human being in our nation? I am truly optimistic that we as a people can do this and achieve what Martin Luther King called ‘the most indispensable element of greatness — justice.’”

Dr. Jones is professor of gynecologic oncology and of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston). In January 2000 he was named the first director of the congressionally mandated Center of Excellence for Research on Minority Health. He is the author of more than 100 scientific publications and has done extensive research on the relationships among hormones, diet, and endocrine responsive tumors. An active member of many scientific and health policy organizations, he is the founding co-chair of the Intercultural Cancer Council (ICC), the nation’s largest multicultural health policy group focused on minorities, the medically underserved, and cancer. In 1999, Dr. Jones received the Jill Ireland Award for Volunteerism from the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Research Foundation for his work on behalf of the ICC.

The Saward Lecture is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research as a public service to the community.

For more information:
Terry Fitzpatrick (503) 335-6602
Jim Gersbach (503) 813-4820

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