Public Figures & Breast Cancer

In general, I don't like the way the press reports the cancer diagnoses of famous people. 

I've written about this before, so no need to rehash it here, but this article gives a very interesting look back at breast cancer diagnoses among well-known women, more often than not political wives, including several first ladies. 

The news hook for the story is the breast cancer diagnosis of Teresa Heinz, wife of 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry. 

Read: Teresa Heinz Shares Breast Cancer Battle

Read more: Celebrity Cancer Diagnoses

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@ Jeanne Sather 2009. 

Comments

[Karla]

Yes, unfortunately, Teresa Heinz used this occasion of announcing her diagnosis to argue in favor of annual mammograms for all women 40 or over, implying that if these women don't detect their cancers early, they will always need chemotherapy for the cancers they do find. Too bad it's not that simple or cut-and-dried. Sadly, though, that's the nonsense the media have been training us all up in very well now for decades--that if we detect breast cancer early, it will not have spread, it will not spread in the future, and we will be "cured." People repeat this doctrine like parrots because it is what we have all heard over and over and over and so we recite it like good little soldiers..."early detection, early detection" as the be-all and end-all of breast cancer treatment. When women in the public eye are freshly diagnosed, they always claim they "caught it early" (even when they undergo chemo) and there's a chorus of people saying "Thank goodness, she caught it early, she's going to be OK."

We really need to start talking truth.

[jeanne Sather]

Karla--you are totally right. My cancer was detected early--no lymph node involvement--and look at me. Years of chemo and radiation.