Friday, March 7, 2008

When a celebrity gets cancer

The New York Times Health blog ran a series of two interesting blog posts in relation to the actor Patrick Swayze's announcement that he is receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer. The first blog is about the attention a celebrity brings to a disease: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/05/an-actors-diagnosis-may-bring-attention-to-a-neglected-cancer/. The second is about how limited cancer research funds are, and how they should be, divided: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/cancer-funding-does-it-add-up/.

Several studies in the past have studied the effect a celebrity face brings to disease awareness and disease screening. It's probably impossible to predict what effect, if any, this latest discussion about pancreatic cancer will bring. But such a high profile cancer diagnosis has the potential to perhaps start a conversation about a difficult diagnosis.

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