Celebrated musical artist, actor, entertainer, and cancer survivor Harry Belafonte visited South Pointe Hospital to meet cancer patients and to speak about prostate cancer.

 

As national spokesman of the International Prostate Cancer Global Awareness Campaign sponsored by Alpha Kappa Psi and the American Cancer Society, Belafonte came to Cleveland to help prevent this dreaded disease. As co-chair of this national campaign launched in Washington D.C. on February 2, 2000, Cleveland is one of 12 locations in the campaign throughout the U.S. Belafonte was the honored guest at a media luncheon to address prostate cancer and its relation to African-American men. Media coverage included broadcast and print media, sending his message as well as promoting a prostate cancer screening at the hospital.

 

Diagnosed in 1995 with prostate cancer, Belafonte knows firsthand the importance of early detection. "If you do not have an early detection of the disease, it is possible for it to be cured, but it is highly questionable. Early detection almost 100 percent guarantees that there is survival." Belafonte recently said about his early, responsive medical care, which helped him survive prostate cancer. As a cancer survivor, Belafonte is encouraging African-American men to get screened for prostate cancer.

 

Belafonte encourages men to not fear a trip to the doctor to get screened. "The denial factor: many men don't want to know. There's a fear there and I think that that's silly. You can easily put on your epitaph that I lie here today because I was afraid to know."

 

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death among African-Americans. In 1999, 179,000 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Sixty percent of these men, or 37,700, died of this preventable epidemic. Also the older segment of the African American population is at the greatest risk for acquiring prostate cancer. African American men have a two to three times higher chance of dying from prostate cancer, than Caucasian men in the United States.