Shirley Temple Made It Easier to Talk About Having Breast Cancer

What I choose to remember about Shirley Temple is that she lived for 41 years after having a mastectomy for breast cancer. In 1972 she spoke openly about her medical condition, and encouraged other women to seek medical care if they noticed a lump, and not to be afraid of the disease. She made it easier for us, today, to talk about breast cancer treatment and options.

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Learning About Lou Gehrig, his Diagnosis, Disability and Pride

Once the athlete acknowledges his limitations, he is treated kindly and generously by his manager, teammates and fans.

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Don’t Judge Her! An Essay on Angelina Jolie, BRCA, Cancer Risk and Informed Decision-Making

There’s no right answer…Jolie’s essay reflects the dilemma of any person making a medical choice based on their cir­cum­stances, values, genetic test results and what infor­mation they’ve been given or oth­erwise found and interpreted.

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On Sheryl Crow’s Report that She Has a Meningioma, and Singing Loud

Fortunately the LATimes and People magazine got the story right. Their headlines, and text, emphasize the benign nature of Crow’s newly-diagnosed condition, a meningioma.

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Two Faces of Pancreatic Cancer

Early this week I was saddened to hear of a former colleague’s death from pancreatic cancer. Dr. Ralph Steinman, a physician-researcher at the Rockefeller University, received a Nobel Prize for his work on the innate immune system. For many, news of Ralph’s death at 68 years arrived synchronously with word of his award. Yesterday we […]

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Considering Steve Jobs, Medical Diagnoses and Privacy

Yesterday morning I wrote a short post on CelebrityDiagnosis.com. By evening, news broke that Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs resigned from his position, presumably for reasons of his health. What’s public, by Jobs’ decision, is that he had a relatively good, typically slow-growing kind of malignancy in the pancreas, a neuroendocrine islet cell tumor. He informed […]

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Notes on Kris Carr and Crazy Sexy Cancer

I’m half-tempted to put down yesterday’s new NYT Magazine feature on crazy sexy cancer goddess Kris Carr. Her blog was one of the first I found when I started ML, and it was the most popular link on my fledgling site until I pulled it, fearful of somehow sponsoring a too-alternative oncology perspective. But I […]

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Thoughts on the Death of Amy Winehouse

I feel compelled to write at least a short note on Amy Winehouse, a young woman who was found dead in her London apartment a few days ago. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but the truth is I was never a big fan of her music. I wasn’t fond of her […]

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Gregg Allman Stars in Hepatitis C Awareness Campaign, with Merck

This weekend I learned that Gregg Allman, of the Allman Brothers, has hepatitis C. Not just that; he underwent a liver transplant last year for treatment of liver cancer. This information came my way via CNN, in a clip narrated by Dr. Sanjay Gupta. The cable TV crew filmed the old rocker in Macon, Georgia, […]

Posted in Communication, Hematology (blood), Infectious Disease, Medical News, Music, Public Health, Public Illness, TVTagged , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on Gregg Allman Stars in Hepatitis C Awareness Campaign, with Merck
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