Aggregated News
Angelina Jolie certainly has good intentions in sharing her experience with breast cancer genetic testing and her decision to have a prophylactic mastectomy, and her announcement marks another welcomed example of well-known women coming forward about personal health issues.
But it is now up to women’s health advocates to ensure that the media coverage and public debate that follows does not offer false information or false hope — which I fear it will, if women are not fully informed about all the issues involved before imagining that Jolie’s decisions would be the right ones for them.
Already, women in the United States undergo a higher rate of mastectomies than women in other countries. “Breast cancer experts believe that many women undergoing mastectomies don’t need them and are getting them out of fear, not because of the real risks,” Diana Zuckerman, president of both the National Research Center for Women and Families and the Cancer Prevention and Treatment Fund, wrote this week.
First, women need to remember that BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations occur in less than 1 percent of the...
But it is now up to women’s health advocates to ensure that the media coverage and public debate that follows does not offer false information or false hope — which I fear it will, if women are not fully informed about all the issues involved before imagining that Jolie’s decisions would be the right ones for them.
Already, women in the United States undergo a higher rate of mastectomies than women in other countries. “Breast cancer experts believe that many women undergoing mastectomies don’t need them and are getting them out of fear, not because of the real risks,” Diana Zuckerman, president of both the National Research Center for Women and Families and the Cancer Prevention and Treatment Fund, wrote this week.
First, women need to remember that BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations occur in less than 1 percent of the...