Cancer deaths still higher in blacks

Blacks still have a much higher death rate from cancer than whites even though U.S. cancer death rates are down overall and among blacks as well, the American Cancer Society said Thursday.

It said the cancer death rate in 2003 was 35% higher in black men and 18% higher in black women than in white men and women. The report estimates that 153,000 of the 1.4 million people diagnosed with cancer in the United States in 2007 will be black, and 63,000 of the estimated 560,000 people who will die of the disease this year will be black.