Health Disparities Drive GWU Team Proposed Breast Cancer Test Led by Prof. Patricia Berg; in PuLSE Institute

WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, August 13, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Patricia Berg, Professor Emeritus at The George Washington University Medical Center, and former White House spokesman and House Aging Committee Chief of Staff Robert Weiner just wrote an article for The PuLSE Institute (and featured on OpEdNews) about how Berg's team at GWU has proposed a new blood test for breast cancer and how the team's work and report were motivated and driven by racial and income health disparities. The blood test uses exosomes, the body’s own particles.

Berg and Weiner begin, “Long known and recently confirmed racial and income health disparities have motivated a George Washington University team (led by Dr. Berg) to propose a new blood test for breast cancer using exosomes, the body's own particles.

Berg continues with her team's research: “We found that 89% of African American women and 57% of Caucasian women - both large numbers but a substantial difference - tested positive for activation of BP1, a genetic protein we discovered in breast-cancer tumors.”

She writes, “The Washington Post on August 1, 2021, reported, ‘Median Black household wealth was 12 percent of White in 2019’ and that was an improvement from three decades ago. The Institute for Research on Poverty reveals ‘a link between poverty and health care.’ African Americans have lower infant and adult mortality and survival rates from major illnesses. But it's not just poverty that causes the health care inequities - it's innate and subtle racism. The National Academy of Medicine reports that ‘racial and ethnic minorities receive lower quality health care.’"

She goes on, “The Centers for Disease Control reported in 2017, ‘Blacks had higher death rates than Whites in all age groups under 65.’ They continued, ‘To continue to reduce the gap in health disparities, these findings suggest targeted interventions that address the leading causes of deaths among blacks, including cardiovascular disease and cancer.’ As an example, the maternal mortality rate overall for African American women is four times the rate of Caucasian women.”

Berg and Weiner explain, “Hillary Clinton, Cong. John Conyers, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Maryland Senate President Mike Miller sponsored an event supporting our research. Our research has been supported by NIH, DOD, Komen, Avon, the Clark Foundation, and our host university, the George Washington University (with the breast cancer-research laboratory led by Berg for twenty-three years).”

Dr. Paul Goldsmith, a former laboratory director at NIH now at GWU and a co-author of the study, said that ‘the racial disparities element and assistance to African Americans of the blood test make this work very important.’ Others who co-authored the study include my colleagues at GWU Yaoxian Lou,Jinguen Rheey, and Anna Yakovleva; Chris Hegerof Protein Simple (San Jose CA), Yasef Khanof Protein Simple, Carl Ascoliof Rockland Immunochemicals, Inc., Gilbertsville, PA, Berg's husband Robert Weiner, who urged Berg and me to provide this important information to the Pulse institute and is a Pulse national Advisory Board member, former Chief of Staff of the U.S. House Aging Committee and Health Sub-committee, drug-policy spokesman for the Clinton and Bush White Houses, and the spokesman for Cong. John Conyers' Government Operations Committee; and my invaluable tech support, Anjela Bachman.”

Berg and Weiner conclude, “Many thanks to Bankole Thompson, editor-in-chief of the PuLSE Institute, for guidance in making the information in this summary for PuLSE understandable and usable for readers.”

Link to full study: http://www.solutionsforchangefoundation.org/20210809.pdf

Link to PuLSE article: https://thepulseinstitute.org/2021/08/07/health-disparities-drive-george-washington-university-teams-proposed-blood-test-for-breast-cancer/

Link to OpEdNews version: https://www.opednews.com/articles/Health-Disparities-Drive-G-by-Robert-Weiner-Breast-Cancer_Cancer_Cancer-Screening_Health-210810-221.html

Patricia Berg and Robert Weiner
Robert Weiner Associates
+1 202-306-1200
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