"[T]roubling data" published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association "conclude that black women diagnosed with breast cancer are more likely to die than white women" because they are more likely to have "basal like" tumors, which are associated with higher mortality, according to King.

"Today, many therapies don't work well against basal-like breast cancer, and the most common approach is surgery or chemotherapy," King writes, adding, "But if research is focused especially on black women with this type of breast cancer, breakthrough treatments might be found" (King, USAToday, 9/8).

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