Pink FAIL #1

(via Etsy) Ummmm. I sort of get what the point of this is, but not really. I suppose they are saying WHEN YOU HAVE BREAST CANCER KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON despite the chemo and the radiation and the exhaustion and the hair loss and nausea. Because you don't want Cancer to get the satisfaction of seeing you get all mopey and down. In this scenario, Cancer is a lot like Santa Claus - it sees you when you're sleeping, etc. And we all know, it's good to anthropomorphize your disease, that always helps.

The Case Of The $57,000 Placebo?

The New York Times has been doing a series on the breast cancer medicine Avastin over the last few months. This is because the FDA was considering, and then deciding, to remove their approval for Avastin as a breast cancer treatment.

Avastin is a bio-tech drug. They way it's supposed to work is that it cuts off nourishment to a tumor by suspending the growth of blood vessels and other delivery systems which normally grow as the tumor does. The end result should be that the tumor starves and subsequently shrinks. Which sounds like a victory! But, weirdly, it's not. Even though the tumors might be smaller, Avastin was shown statistically to not prolong survival of breast cancer patients. Which means that cancer makes tumors, but just because you shrink the tumor, doesn't mean you shrink the cancer. Which again puts the spotlight on exactly how little we understand about cancer.

Still, some patients feel that they have really benefited from Avastin and are steamed that the FDA isn't going to approve use for it any longer, which means it is unlikely to be covered by Medicare or insurance. Which is important. Because Avastin costs about $57,000 a year.

It's hard to know who to side with here. The cost of the drug is prohibitive - truly. And cancer treatment is already expensive enough. But if it really doesn't do anything amazing, should it still available to be prescribed? Carol Fleming, a cancer patient who is taking Avastin, is not confused.

"Avastin may not work for everyone, but until there is a test to identify who will respond, it is not right to withhold Avastin from every breast cancer patient except the rich, who don’t need the reimbursement."

Wow. Just F-ing Wow.

This is really amazing.
http://www.salon.com/life/real_families/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2010/12/14/christmas_cancer

As I feel my way along the wall while creating this blog, I know I am much better at the rage-against-the-machines aspects of all this then I am at the far more familiar illness-crisis-loss which defines the reason we have let the machines have their way with us. Because cancer has begun to seem like a destiny that randomly swings and hits our loved ones, takes them away from us before we are ready, and forces us to confront this tiny window of time we have here, on this planet, with these people we are tied to, who occasionally annoy us, and whom we deeply love.

And still, this is why we fight. Why I'm here with this pink page. Because I want far fewer people to get sick in the first place.

The CURE belongs to Komen! (Or else.)

I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who double checks articles on HuffPo - a liberal leaning polemic tabloid rag subtly disguised as lowbrow tabloid rag. But this article turned out to be absolutely accurate as confirmed by this article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The upshot is this: Komen goes around suing tiny organizations over the use of "...For The Cure" in their title.

And this is clearly because one of the core missions of Komen involves protecting their brand.
Let's think about this for a second: THIS CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION WHOSE MISSION IS TO ERADICATE BREAST CANCER FEELS THAT ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS THEY CAN DO TO FIGHT CANCER IS TO PROTECT THEIR OWN BRAND RECOGNITION.
A good friend of mine pointed out that the mission of any cause-based non-profit should be to put themselves out of business. But you wouldn't prioritize protecting your brand recognition if you viewed your mission as having a finite end point. You would only do it if you viewed your philanthropic organization as a one in a field of organizations whose existence is permanent, and whose job it is to come out on top in order to receive the lions share of resources.

Dear Health Care Industry, Please stop making us radioactive. Love, the Health Care Industry?

The LA Times gave the Image Wisely Campaign some inches last week.

The Image Wisely campaign is mostly "inside baseball", with its aims being to get the health care industry itself to "...stop the overuse of medical radiation on patients." Yes, this is a bunch of radiologists who are standing up to protest the overuse of their services.

However, this is just the latest part of a growing movement to acknowledge the potential harms of some kinds of screening, including mammograms. The basic idea is that doctors are overusing radioactive imaging to the point that the cumulative RADs a patient might be exposed to - just by getting all the preventative screening that is recommended - might actually cause cancer.

This is the basis of the whole "GET A MAMMOGRAM/DON'T GET A MAMMOGRAM" fight going on in the last two years. The base issue is this: no one seems to be able to get a definitive read on whether - statistically - the number of lives saved by mammograms is greater than the number of lives lost due to cancer caused by overexposure to radiation by mammograms.

Yes, you can put this on your ongoing "say what?!?" list.

Welcome to The Cancer Show (hint: you're already here...)

We’d like to welcome you to The Cancer Show!

But we can’t. Because you’ve been watching it for a long time already. As a matter of fact, you’ve been in the Show forever – ever since you first chose the nail polish with the pink ribbon on the package over maybe the one you wanted, or signed up to walk/ride/bike/skip for cancer. Ever since you did anything for “The Cure”.

The way most of us operate around the subject of cancer if we don’t have it is from a defensive crouch of prevention, and if not then – well, perhaps by the time we get sick “The Cure” will have gotten it’s fat ass off the bus in time to save us.

We here at The Cancer Show don’t much believe in “The Cure”. Not that we don’t all wish it existed. But if all it took for it to materialize was the total single minded dedication of over a hundred charities, over 30 billion dollars, and round the clock medical research all done in the name of unearthing “The Cure” then…we’d already have it.

Instead, we believe it’s time we get real. There’s a lot of good we can do to prevent cancer before it happens. Cuz if you don’t get cancer, you don’t have to wish for a cure. And especially in our country’s current state, considering the price of the few new cancer drugs we’ve been able to produce in the recent past, there is no reason to believe we’d even be able to afford the drug for all the afflicted.
This site is dedicated to witnessing all the good, bad and indifferent that is done in the name of those for whom cancer is no longer an abstraction, but a hard unpleasant reality.

PINK writes PINK check to PINK ribbon movement in charitable act of redundancy.

Where does one deposit a Giant Check? Is there a special Celebrity Giant Charity Money Bank?