The Journal of Clinical Oncology is celebrating Delaware’s progress in closing the racial disparity in which blacks and whites die from colon cancer. It holds the First State efforts as a national model.

Congressman John Carney is among the contributors to the respected medical journal that cites the impressive work of the Delaware Cancer Consortium program.

From 2002-09, colorectal cancer screening rates for African-Americans and whites increased to 74 percent. The cost savings is significant because the focus is on targeted lifestyle factors linked to cancer – diet, obesity, higher levels of environmental pollutants in minority communities and lack of access to critical medical testing to detect early warning signs.

The DCC’s screening program costs about $1 million annually to run, but saves about $8.5 million in treatment costs from a reduced incidence of cancer and disease stages that require less aggressive therapy.

“... if we could do this across the United States, 4,200 fewer African-Americans would get CRC each year, and 2,700 fewer would die as a result of it,” according to the journal.

It laments how bureaucratic hurdles of funding thwart such comprehensive public health solutions. That’s in stark contrast to the political will that enforced preventive screenings and the unpopular 2002 public-smoking ban in Delaware, instituted under Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, when Carney was lieutenant governor.

The public’s ire has not completely died. But these rates should help douse the smoldering frustrations.