Five years ago, the Thapelo Institute, a Chicago-based organization of African-American health professionals, put together a public-service announcement featuring then-8th Ward Ald. Todd Stroger.
Because Thapelo (pronounced THA-pell-oh) focuses on helping African-American men become more healthy and fit, the purpose of the announcement was to encourage black men over 40 to have regular screenings for prostate cancer.
The video was set in a South Side barbershop (where, by the way, the movie “Barbershop” was set). In the video, Stroger is sitting in a barber’s chair getting his hair cut. The video begins with the barber inquiring about the health of Stroger’s father, John Stroger, then Cook County Board president.
Todd Stroger: He’s doing pretty good. You know he had that prostate cancer surgery. It’s been like, almost 10 years ago. And he’s moving well. Now I’m 39, I just had my test about two months ago. Black people are affected more by prostate cancer than any other group. So you need to get a digital exam and they do a blood exam and if you find out early, your chance of living a long life is very good.
Barber: I mean, so how is that treated? Is it treated like regular cancer through chemo?
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Stroger: Well, generally they do two things. Either chemotherapy or they’ll do surgery and cut out part of it. The earlier you’re diagnosed, the easier it will be and you won’t have to have anything radical done.
Barber: I mean, you can’t catch it at 30 or anything like that, can you?
Stroger: Well, they recommend that you — at least by the time you’re 40, you have an exam every year. That’s usually the age when things really start to happen. In our community, men generally don’t go to the doctor like they should. You need to have that test just to make sure you’re healthy. There’s nothing like preventive medicine.
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Last week Cook County spokeswoman Ibis Antongiorgi acknowledged that Board President Todd Stroger, 44, kept his prostate cancer diagnosis under wraps last year while he campaigned for his father’s job. Antongiorgi, who said Stroger expects to make a full recovery, added that he now will launch a public awareness campaign about the disease.
“He is committed to being as open as possible,” she said. “He really wants to get the message out there.”
Clearly, Stroger is no stranger to proselytizing about prostate cancer. But perhaps now he’d better let someone else do it.
It’s true that there’s no place in this video where he promised to tell people (read: voters) if he ever received a diagnosis of prostate cancer. And, as a public servant, you can argue whether he’s under any obligation to do so.
Still, when you consider how he handled this diagnosis — and how he handled his father’s stroke just one week before the March 2006 primary — he comes off as being more of a politician intent on saving his own political hide than an advocate for men’s health.
Prostate cancer shouldn’t be a political pawn. As Stroger suggested in the video, this is serious business.
Thapelo made the public-service announcement because the incidence of prostate cancer and the mortality rate for black men continue to be too high. Some studies suggest it’s twice that of white men.
Dr. Terry Mason, Chicago’s commissioner of public health and one of the founders of Thapelo, told me that we have to stop thinking about prostate cancer in terms of symptoms.
“Just because you’re urinating OK and you don’t have any problems with intercourse or blood in your urine or lower back pain doesn’t mean you don’t have an early problem,” he said. “Sometimes if you have the symptoms you could have an enlarged prostate.”
The point is that men over 40 (the age varies depending on family history) have to be checked annually. He said the five-year survival rate is over 95 percent if the cancer is caught early.
The people at Thapelo said they tapped Stroger to be in the public-service announcement because his family history made him a prime candidate and a perfect spokesman for screenings.
The thinking was that he could do the public a great service. That doesn’t appear to have figured much into his thinking as well.
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