A Claflin graduate has taken the advanced cervical cancer that left her barren and used it as inspiration to become a highly honored national advocate in the fight against the world's second leading cause of cancer.

January is designated as Cervical Health Awareness Month, and since 1997 Tamika Felder has given her life to communicating with others about the risks and prevention of cervical cancer.

Tamika and Friends

That is the year she graduated from then Claflin College, where she majored in English with a concentration in mass communications. She then founded Tamika and Friends Inc., a national nonprofit organization designed to raise awareness about cervical cancer and its link to the human papillomavirus through a network of survivors and their friends.

In January 2005, she launched a Web site, www.tamikaandfriends.org, as a conduit through which women can tap into survival stories and learn about screenings and other prevention measures for cervical cancer.

House Parties of fiVe

Felder also hosts House Parties of fiVe (HPV), an allusion to the abbreviation for the sexually transmitted disease known as human papillomavirus infection, which has been linked to the occurrence of cervical cancer. Her Web site states that an HPV party "mixes girl talk with lessons that help women become more comfortable discussing their sexual health."

Hosts invite at least five of their friends over for an evening and discuss and learn about situations that may put them at risk for HPV and learn how to recognize symptoms of the virus and cervical cancer.

"What we've learned from talking to women is that no matter what age they are, 18 or 75, they don't even know where their cervix is located as part of reproductive system," Felder says.

Presidential Leadership Award

Her efforts prompted Women In Government, a national nonprofit, bipartisan organization of women state legislators, to honor her with a Presidential Leadership Award. Felder was presented the award at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., among a host of other award recipients, including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

"For a little girl from South Carolina, it was truly a phenomenal experience to be at the same place where they hold ceremonies for philanthropists with multimillion dollar budgets because they feel like I impact most people by going out and speaking to them. I'm still honored," said Felder, now a television reporter and producer in Washington, D.C.

Cervical cancer

A disease in which abnormal cells in the cervix grow out of control, cervical cancer can be detected by a pap test. During pap tests, doctors scrape the cells from the cervix to examine them under a microscope and detect the presence of cancer, potentially cancer-causing changes, noncancerous infections or inflammations.

Cervical cancer was once the leading cause of death for women in the United States, but, according to the Centers for Disease Control, during the past four decades incidence and mortality have declined significantly, primarily because of the widespread use of the Pap test. Although the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force strongly recommends screening for cervical cancer in sexually active women with a cervix, half of the cervical cancers diagnosed in the United States are in women who have never received a Pap test, and another 10 percent in women who haven't had one in five years.

According to U.S. Cancer Statistics, 11, 820 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2003, and 3,919 women died from it.

Left to tell her story

Felder, 31, did not receive regular Pap tests even while she was working as a producer of 'Heart and Soul,' a national health program targeted toward African-American women on the Black Entertainment Television network. She was eventually diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer in 2001 at the age of 25.

She underwent radiation, chemotherapy and a radical hysterectomy resulting in the removal of her Fallopian tubes, cervix, uterus and the top half of her vagina.

Although she has physically healed, she says she still deals with the mental and spiritual aspects of the cancer.

"I can't have children, and my life has forever changed. I almost lost my life to a cancer that's almost always preventable, ... but I became a poster child for cervical cancer," Felder said. "I thank God that he left me here to tell my story."

HPV ignorance widespread

A motivational speaker, Felder said she was amazed to learn through her nonprofit organizational work how many women don't even know where their cervix is and how many African-American women are particularly dying from cervical cancer because of a lack of health insurance, awareness and education.

She said many people also don't realize how common and devastating human papillomavirus infection can be.

"It's not just an STD. HPV is very much like the flu. There are over 100 different strains of HPV that can cause general warts and warts on the hand and feet. There are some strains that cause cervical cancer," Felder said.

"A lot of the medical community thought at one point that we would cause widespread panic, but think about what would have happened with HIV and AIDS if we had not said anything."

HPV in men

Most men who contract genital HPV have no symptoms, but some types of HPV can cause single or multiple genital wars that are raised, flat or cone-shaped. Genital HPV is passed on through genital contact, such as vaginal or anal sex, and people can have genital HPV even if years have passed since they had sex. Although there is no test approved to detect or treat HPV in men, but according to the Centers for Disease Control, HPV is unlikely to affect a man's health and usually goes away on its own.

Vaccines, tests for women

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an HPV vaccination for females age 9 to 26 to prevent cervical cancer caused by HPV. Regular cervical cancer screenings (Pap tests) are also recommended for all women starting within three years of when a women begins sexual activity or at age 21, whichever comes first.

"Women under age 30 are urged to get a liquid-based Pap test because you get a better reading with those. Women age 30 and over should get a liquid-based Pap test with their HPV test to detect whether you have the HPV virus," Felder said.

"This is a cancer that no woman should be dying from. The number of cervical cancer incidences is relatively low, but we have a cancer that's almost always preventable. One case is too many," she said.

T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5534. Discuss this and other stories on-line at TheTandD.com.

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