When Your Medical Treatment Depends On Your RacePosted in Articles, Health/Medicine/Genetics, Media Archive, United States on 2018-04-20 02:54Z by Steven |
When Your Medical Treatment Depends On Your Race
The Establishment
2018-04-11
 Human red bone marrow Jill Doughtie |
Why do minority patients have a much harder time finding a match for bone marrow transplants?
It’s not easy to look for a specific boy among hundreds of first graders, especially when they swarm into lines for cupcakes and cotton candy. On this fall bake-sale day, the cafeteria of Public School 106 in the Parkchester section of the Bronx is buzzing with energy and children’s happy shrieks. A few teachers shout across the hall to keep things from spinning out of control. And when I finally spot 6-year-old Asaya Bullock, he seems to be well in hand.
“Ready for your green soup?” Charline, his mother, takes out a thermos with a Spider-Man design on the side.
The green soup is one of the only three things Asaya has ever been able to eat. He drinks it for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner; he drank it for the whole trip that his family took to the Caribbean to visit his mom’s relatives. Luckily, with broccoli, kale, green beans, and some minced meat, Asaya’s soup is at least healthy — and better than the small bowl of potato chips used as comfort food after his bi-weekly belly infusion. The recurring medical procedure helps keep him alive…
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