Reason for mild optimism, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report "Recent Trends in Mortality Rates for Four Major Cancers, by Sex and Race/Ethnicity -- United States, 1990-1998" does give one cause for hope in the ongoing fight against cancer. Tracking four major cancers by racial/ethnic type and gender, the report reveals that cancer mortality has declined slightly overall across the general population of the United States. Alarming, however, is the striking statistical disparity between cancer rates for white and African Americans. For, while white Americans outnumber African Americans by a ratio of 5 to 1, government tracking reveals that the latter group consistently suffers the highest death rates for the four most prevalent forms (lung, colorectal, prostate and breast) of cancer. Particularly troubling are the tables indicating that African American women are more than twice as likely to succumb to breast cancer as white women, and that the same is true for the same racial groups regarding the occurrence of prostate cancer.