CNN Anchor Reveals Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Sara Sidner's announcement spotlights how dangerous the disease can be for women of color in America.
If you haven’t watched CNN’s Anchor, Sara Sidner’s emotional announcement, you need to. Earlier this week, Snider revealed her cancer diagnosis to the world but what’s shocking about her story might surprise you.
“Breast cancer does not run in my family, and yet here I am with stage III breast cancer,” Snider said on-air. “It is hard to say out loud. I am in my second month of chemo treatments and will do radiation and a double mastectomy. Stage III is not a death sentence anymore for the vast majority of women. “But here is the reality that really shocked my system when I started to research more about breast cancer, something I never knew before this diagnosis: If you happen to be a Black woman, you are 41% more likely to die from breast cancer than your White counterparts.”
I want us to put aside Sidner’s incredible bravery and courage to focus on that statistic because as someone who writes about the disparities in healthcare between white women and women of color, we do not talk about what’s really driving these massive gaps in being able to access care in the richest country on earth: racial inequity.
Since 2019, breast cancer has been the leading cause of cancer death for Black women. Even though they have a 4% lower incidence rate of breast cancer than white women, they are more likely to die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.
In this CNN article, Dr. Demetria Smith-Graziani, a medical oncologist, breast cancer specialist and researcher-investigator at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, tells the news outlet that racial disparities in breast cancer are probably due to a combination of biological and socioeconomic factors” that are the result of structural racism.
Dr. Smith-Graziani points out that Black women are less likely to see primary care doctors on a regular basis compared to white women, and are less likely to undergo breast cancer screening. “Once a breast cancer diagnosis is made, Black women have a significantly longer delay to the start of treatment,” she told CNN.
These striking differences are not just limited to breast cancer. Amidst America’s ongoing maternal health crisis, it is Black women who are at the most risk when giving birth in America.
Women of color are currently two to three times more likely to die giving birth in America, but it is Black women who are paying the highest price. Studies show that they are 243 percent (!) more likely to die than their white counterparts: They have a death rate of 40.8 per 100,000 births, while white birthing people have a rate of 14.7 per 100,000.
Black women are also more likely than Asian or Latina women to die from pregnancy-related complications regardless of their education level or their income. Of course, racial disparities in risk factors related to pregnancy such as hypertension, anemia, and gestational diabetes also play a big role, and are worsened by stress related to racial inequality and health care, which skyrocketed during COVID.
But the pandemic, as I write in my book The Pain Gap, also exposed the fact that it is racism, not race, that’s driving these numbers. Recent studies have found that neither wealth or education can protect Black Americans when it comes to healthcare.
This issue is very personal for me. Twelve years ago, I experienced this type of discrimination firsthand when I almost died in childbirth. I am still not over the shock. I was ready for childbirth to be the most empowering experience of my life, but instead, I was forced to confront the real possibility that the color of my skin played a role in the way I was treated at the hospital.
The experience put me on a journey to understand how a privileged, highly educated Bangladeshi woman like me almost died giving birth in America.
While I am still processing, writing and speaking about my own American healthcare trauma and near-brush with death, that is not why we all—men and women— need to pay attention to why women are still dying giving birth in America. The vast majority of these deaths are preventable. What do the maternal mortality statistics indicate?
Maternal mortality tells us more than the number of women dying in childbirth. It tells us how well a country’s healthcare system is functioning. It tells us the overall position of women in society. Because in the year 2024, no woman should be dying in childbirth. We know how to prevent these deaths. We know how to save women’s lives.
Sara Sidner later went on to her colleague, Abby D. Phillip’s show to speak further about her diagnosis and Black women’s health in America.
Please also watch the below conversation between these two powerhouse women of color. I thank them both for spotlighting this critical issue and why we all need to invest in women’s health now.