Health
NYU Oral Cancer Walk this weekend on East Side
BY GABE HERMAN
NYU’s College of Dentistry will
host its annual NYU Oral Cancer
Walk on Sunday, Oct. 6,
which follows a three-mile path through
Kips Bay and the East Village.
The walk supports the NYU Oral
Cancer Center and the university’s
Bluestone Center for Clinical Research,
both at 421 First Ave., at East 25th St.
This will be the fourth year that the
walk is benefi tting the NYU Oral Cancer
Center. Previously, NYU’s College
of Dentistry held the walk in partnership
with the Oral Cancer Foundation.
Over 600 people registered for last
year’s walk, including students, faculty,
alumni, and oral cancer survivors and
their families. Over $30,000 was raised
for oral cancer research.
Along with the walk, the College of
Dentistry will offer free oral cancer and
health screenings to the public.
Oral cancer kills over 8,000 people
in America every year. While it is a
rare cancer, according to Dr. Brian
A previous year of the NYU Oral Cancer Walk in Manhattan.
Schmidt, director of the NYU Oral
Cancer Center, its impact can be severe
if not treated at an early stage.
“Unfortunately it often gets detected
COURTESY NYU COLLEGE OF DENTISTRY
late,” said Dr. Schmidt. “Oral cancer
has such an impact on quality of life.”
He noted that it can be a diffi cult cancer
to deal with, and the only treatment
is surgical, often involving removal of
teeth and the tongue.
The primary symptom of oral cancer
is pain and an ulcer in the mouth. Even
if a person doesn’t drink alcohol or
smoke tobacco, which are the two biggest
risk factors for the disease, a painful
ulcer should still be checked out
immediately by a dentist, Dr. Schmidt
said.
Oral cancer rates are rising among
younger people, Dr. Schmidt said,
though for reasons that are unclear.
In terms of raising awareness about
oral cancer, “there’s still a lot of work
to be done,” he said.
Dr. Schmidt participates in the walk
every year. He also gives a short talk
and introduces a video featuring patients
that have survived the disease.
“It’s a fantastic experience because
you have a lot of students and faculty
who participate,” said Dr. Schmidt of
the event, “and because dental students
are the ones picking up the cause, and
that’s very exciting.”
Inspectors ignored kids with harmful lead levels: Stringer
BY GREG B. SMITH, THE CITY
This story was fi rst published on
MSept. 26 by The City. ayor Bill de Blasio often boasts
of his “robust” effort to eradicate
lead poisoning in public
housing, but a new report shows the
city failed to check thousands of private
apartments where nearly 12,000
children had elevated levels of lead in
their blood.
A report released by City Comptroller
Scott Stringer found that, from
2013 through October 2018, the city
Health Department was aware that
11,972 children registered blood-lead
levels that the federal Centers for Disease
Control says should warrant an
inspection.
The CDC toughened its standard
for fl agging lead-poisoning risks in
2012. But city health offi cials refused
to adopt the new CDC standard and instead
stuck with a much higher threshold
until last year.
Because of the delay, they did not
pass this information on to city housing
inspectors to perform a lead test in the
nearly 10,000 apartments where these
endangered children lived.
That included 503 buildings where
three or more children had registered
5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of
blood, the level the CDC says should
require an automatic environmental investigation
of the apartment where the
child lives.
PHOTO : BEN FRACTENBERG/THE CITY
Comptroller Scott Stringer.
“This is about the mayor’s offi ce doing
the obvious and getting these inspections
done,” Stringer said at a press
conference announcing the lead report
in his Lower Manhattan offi ce.
‘Crucial Opportunities’ Missed
This problem mirrors the same lapse
already exposed at the New York City
Housing Authority, where health offi
cials ignored the CDC standard and
didn’t trigger inspections for NYCHA
apartments that housed more than
1,000 children with elevated blood levels
between 2012 and 2017.
Stringer said his investigation
showed that
city agencies
“missed crucial
opportunities
to protect
children from
the immense
harms associated
with lead
exposure.”
The fi ndings
demonstrate
“a clear
failure by the
city to leverage
its own
data related to
lead exposure
and utilize
that data to
precisely and
methodically inspect
buildings
and areas most likely to pose a threat to
children,” the report states.
The comptroller’s offi ce looked at
health department blood lead data going
back to the Bloomberg administration
and continuing through 2018
in the de Blasio administration, when
the NYCHA lead scandal forced the
Health Department to begin adopting
the CDC’s 5 microgram standard.
On top of NYCHA’s already exposed
failures, the lack of triggered inspections
in private apartments further
undermines de Blasio’s repeated assertions
that his administration has made
an aggressive effort to reduce lead exposure
in children.
Lead-Affected Kids
Likely Undercounted
In July 2018, de Blasio announced
the Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene would start applying the
CDC’s 5 microgram standard to private
sector apartments as the threshold that
would trigger an investigation.
Until then, it had been relying on the
far more conservative 10 microgram
standard for children under 6 and a 15
microgram standard for children 6 to
18 years old.
In a press release announcing the
change, the mayor’s offi ce stated the
adoption of the CDC standard “will
signifi cantly expand the city’s robust
lead prevention programs.”
The release made no mention of the
fact that the city hadn’t tested private
sector apartments housing thousands
of children the Health Department
knew had registered elevated bloodlead
levels.
This story was originally published
by THE CITY, an independent, nonprofi
t news organization dedicated to
hard-hitting reporting that serves the
people of New York.
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