Posts tagged Breast cancer

Lara Croft, Cancer Raider

0
27 minutes ago
by Monotreme in
Just in case you missed them.

Just in case you missed them.

Tues­day, Angelina Jolie, who pos­sesses per­haps the most famous mam­mary glands on the planet, announced in a New York Times Op-​​Ed that her breasts have been pro­phy­lac­ti­cally removed because a gene test for BRCA1 came back pos­i­tive. It’s a well-​​written, pas­sion­ate and thor­oughly researched arti­cle which I strongly rec­om­mend you read.

We don’t gen­er­ally do celebrity news here at Log­a­rchism, but we do dis­cuss the pol­i­tics and eco­nom­ics of health care. Jolie’s story illus­trates some of the chal­lenges fac­ing health care as we move into the Age of Obamacare.

Jolie’s announce­ment comes as the Supreme Court has heard argu­ments, and is cur­rently delib­er­at­ing and prepar­ing a writ­ten opin­ion, in the Asso­ci­a­tion for Mol­e­c­u­lar Pathol­ogy v. Myr­iad Genet­ics, Inc. case. I sum­ma­rized the rel­e­vant facts in an ear­lier arti­cle.

Jolie is no stranger to con­tro­versy, and she (or her pub­li­cist) delves into the deep end of med­ical ethics and pub­lic pol­icy with this bold statement:

Breast can­cer alone kills some 458,000 peo­ple each year, accord­ing to the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion, mainly in low– and middle-​​income coun­tries. It has got to be a pri­or­ity to ensure that more women can access gene test­ing and life­sav­ing pre­ven­tive treat­ment, what­ever their means and back­ground, wher­ever they live. The cost of test­ing for BRCA1 and BRCA2, at more than $3,000 in the United States, remains an obsta­cle for many women.

If the Supreme Court decides in favor of Myr­iad, we can expect this sit­u­a­tion to con­tinue. (more…)

Smoke Screen

113
1 year ago
by Monotreme in

Duck and Uncover

This week, the Susan G. Komen Foun­da­tion, one of the best-​​funded, most vis­i­ble, and most pow­er­ful orga­ni­za­tions gath­er­ing money for breast can­cer treat­ment, research and screen­ing, stepped in a big pile o’ poo when they changed their grant appli­ca­tion rules in such a way to rather point­edly exclude Planned Parenthood.

Planned Par­ent­hood is not the Komen Foundation’s biggest prob­lem, though. As you’ll see shortly, they spend their money on feel-​​good projects, rather than using evidence-​​based med­i­cine to deter­mine who will be funded. In fact, there are sev­eral instances where Komen part­ner­ships have been detri­men­tal to women’s breast health. They have always made their deci­sions based on pol­i­tics and appear­ances, not what’s best for women.

The move to bar Planned Par­ent­hood was in response to anti-​​abortion groups, who objected to Planned Parenthood’s fund­ing of abor­tions. The media frenzy exposed some­thing that many in the med­ical and research com­mu­nity have known for some time: health care is polit­i­cal, and the Susan B. Komen Foun­da­tion is heav­ily staffed with peo­ple who iden­tify with con­ser­v­a­tive pol­i­tics. Most attrib­uted the cur­rent cri­sis to the hir­ing of Senior Vice Pres­i­dent for Pub­lic Pol­icy Karen Han­del nine months ago.

Ms. Han­del describes her­self in her Twit­ter pro­file as a “Life­long Con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can” and for­mer Geor­gia Sec­re­tary of State. She would seem to be well-​​suited to a role involv­ing cri­sis man­age­ment for a large, high-​​profile national orga­ni­za­tion. (more…)

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