March 3, 2026: Medical Racism & Lobbying For Our Causes

On today’s show, hosts Robo, Opollo and Barbara spoke about lots of topics of relevance to us and our listeners.  Opollo related his experience in Atlanta lobbying on behalf of housing, the environment, and more.  Robo gave details about his plans to travel to Atlanta next Thursday, March 12, with Migrant Equity Southeast (MESE) on behalf of migrants being rounded up by ICE and detained, with support from local police.  For more information on MESE and its upcoming lobbying day, please visit https://www.migrantequity.org.  

We spent most of our second our talking about medical racism and the racialization of healthcare resources.   We spoke about a number of men and women who obtained medical degrees, however many could not practice in the USA due to discrimination and Jim Crow laws.   Barbara related the story of Henrietta Lacks, who was diagnosed with cancer in 1951 after giving birth to a child (a diagnosis that was likely missed during the birth).    During her cancer treatments at Johns Hopkins, cancerous and non cancerous cells were removed without her consent.  It was discovered that her cancer cells  (named HeLa) had the amazing ability to continue to grow in the lab, making them valuable for future cancer research, but provided no compensation to Lacks family after her death.  Recently, the estate of Henrietta Lacks settled its lawsuits with the pharma companies that benefitted from the use of her cells. The terms of the settlement are confidential.  Opollo related the story of Serena Williams, who nearly died after the birth of a child, due to pulmonary embolisms that went undiagnosed until she demanded a CT scan.

At the end of the show, we talked about the Hindsight Film Festival happening this week in Savannah.  We were hoping for a short conversation with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now on the show, but due to scheduling, was conducted on That Old Savannah Magic on the 3/4/26 show at 4 pm.  Amy will be in Savannah for Steal This Story Please!,  the documentary of her life as an investigative journalist on Saturday, March 7 at 7 at the Otis Johnson Cultural Arts Center.