Author: suerochman

It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

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“Please won’t you be my neighbor?”


Hearing Fred Rogers sing those welcoming words as he donned his trademark cardigan sweater and blue tennis shoes signified a comforting kind of children’s television programming. Parents could be sure a visit to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood would be educational and age-appropriate. For children, hearing the familiar song meant they were about to spend time with a man who understood their hopes and fears, never talked down to them, and always reassured them that “I like you just the way you are.”

That’s the opening paragraph from my article “A Beautiful Neighbor” on the life and times of Fred Rogers, who died from stomach cancer in 2003. The article, published in the Winter 2014/2015 issue of Cancer Today couldn’t have been easier to write. Who didn’t love Mister Rogers?

‘Sir’ and ‘Ladies’: Can We Tell You About Cancer?

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On the international front, a brief article I wrote on a cancer education campaign in Ghana: ‘Sir’ and ‘Ladies’: Can We Tell You About Cancer?

The Africa Oxford Cancer Foundation and the European Society for Medical Oncology Developing Countries Task Force launched a five-year pilot program in Ghana to develop and implement cancer-prevention and early-detection programs that can be models for other developing countries.

Afrox1Currently, most Africans do not have access to screening, treatment or palliative care. For instance, Ghana, with a population of 25.9 million, has only two oncology centers and four oncologists. There are no oncology nurses.

Afrox2The pilot program includes the distribution of 13 different posters (like those seen here) to health centers  and the general public. Developed with the support of the Cancer Society of Ghana, the posters can be downloaded for free and used by any organization or individual, and in any country.

This article originally appeared in the Winter 2014/2015 Cancer Today.

Elmer Huerta: A Champion for Prevention

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6-Elmer-Huerta-200x250-WEB

Dr. Elmer Huerta is the founder of the Cancer Preventiorium, a cancer prevention clinic specifically for Latino immigrants. Since opening its doors in the mid-1990s at the Washington Cancer Institute in Washington, DC, the Preventorium has served close to 33,000 people.

How did the Cancer Preventorium get started?
While Dr. Huerta was at the National Cancer Institute, he started a radio show, Cuidando su Salud (Taking Care of Your Health), and as his show became more popular, he was asked to provide cancer prevention presentations at Latino churches and community centers. In these settings, women frequently shared their frustrations about having to go to one doctor for a Pap test, another for a colorectal cancer screening test and then yet another so their husband could have prostate cancer screening. They wanted everything in one place. Dr. Huerta thought they were on to something—and Washington Hospital agreed. “The interest of the community was so huge,” says Huerta, “we started then and haven’t stopped.”

Read more about the Cancer Preventorium in my interview with Dr. Huertra  in the Winter 2014/2015 Cancer Today.

Cancer Screening in Older Adults: Risks and Benefits

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 UnknownWhich older adults should undergo cancer screening? How often?

Although screening strives to reduce cancer deaths, different answers to these questions have led to inconsistent screening guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and leading medical organizations.

To learn more, read my article “Cancer Screening in Older Adults: Risks and Benefits” in the December 2014 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

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Cancer Today–Fall 2014

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The Forward Look section of the Fall issue of Cancer Today–which I assign and edit–contains a number of articles that speak to important trends in cancer care.

Fall-Cancer-Today-Cover90x115-WEBFirst up: Can a healthy diet reduce cancer risk? That’s the question I posed to Walter Willett, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health, who is the “go-to” for many reporters who are writing about diet and disease risk in the Fall Q&A: Eating Well.

If news stories about increasing rates of thyroid cancer have you worried, this article explains why “experts are divided about whether this statistic reflects a true rise in thyroid cancer incidence or is merely a consequence of increased detection resulting from better diagnostic tools.”

Studies show more women are choosing to have a double mastectomy following a cancer diagnosis. This choice appears to be motivated more by fear and and anxiety, as there is no evidence removing the opposite breasts increases breast cancer survival. Read why in Double Mastectomies on the Rise.

Lastly, if you’ve heard of sepsis but aren’t sure what it is or why it’s a problem, you’ll want to read “A Deadly Inflammation.”

The High Cost of Cancer Drugs

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Cancer drug prices are sky high. Last night 60 Minutes aired this piece on the “why” behind cancer drug pricing.

It’s not a pretty picture, as this segment of the transcript illustrates:

That’s because media exposure, he says, works! Right after their editorial was published, the drug’s manufacturer, Sanofi, cut the price of Zaltrap by more than half.

Dr. Peter Bach: It was a shocking event. Because it was irrefutable evidence that the price was a fiction. All of those arguments that we’ve heard for decades, “We have to charge the price we charge. We have to recoup our money. We’re good for society. Trust us. We’ll set the right price.” One op-ed in the New York Times from one hospital and they said, “Oh, okay, we’ll charge a different price.” It was like we were in a Turkish bazaar and…

Lesley Stahl: What do you mean?

Dr. Peter Bach: They said, “This carpet is $500” and you say, “I’ll give you $100.” And the guy says, “Okay.” They set it up to make it highly profitable for doctors to go for Zaltrap instead of Avastin. It was crazy!

But he says it got even crazier when Sanofi explained the way they were changing the price.

Dr. Peter Bach: They lowered it in a way that doctors could get the drug for less. But patients were still paying as if it was high-priced.

Lesley Stahl: Oh, come on.

Dr. Peter Bach: They said to the doctor, “Buy Zaltrap from us for $11,000 and we’ll send you a check for $6,000.” Then you give it to your patient and you get to bill the patient’s insurance company as if it cost $11,000. So it made it extremely profitable for the doctors. They could basically double their money if they use Zaltrap.

Read or watch it here: http://alturl.com/mfjrb

A New Look at Spirituality

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SpiritualityforBlogWhile reporting my feature story on the role of spirituality in cancer care for the summer issue of Cancer Today, I was struck—yet again—by how fortunate I am to do the work that I do. As a freelance writer, I sometimes feel like I never left grad school: days filled with research and reporting; late nights meeting deadlines; a blank page, waiting; a half-empty cup of coffee close at hand. It’s not a high-paying tech gig. But the people I talk to, and the topics I get to write about, make it all worthwhile.

This was especially true of the chaplains I interviewed about integrating spiritual health into medical care. I had thought of chaplains as ministers of war, sent to hear final confessions and administer a fallen soldier’s last rights. But as I learned, and as many already know, off the battlefield and beyond the movies, the role that a chaplain can play in helping people who are sick or dying—and their loved ones—is vastly more expansive, a change increasingly evident in cancer care.

Halfway through my reporting, my partner began providing support for a cousin who had been in the hospital for more than a week, bottoming out of his addiction and battling sepsis, which had developed following surgery for his Crohn’s disease. I suggested that he have the nurse contact a chaplain. Within a half hour, the chaplain on call that day was by his side.

Like our cousin, the chaplain was Jewish. Like him, she had Crohn’s disease. And, like him, she was familiar with addiction; she had been clean and sober for decades. I was sitting at my desk when my partner relayed the series of coincidences. The only thing my non-religious self could think to say was: “God works in mysterious ways.”

I turned back to the blinking cursor. I was on deadline.

Here’s the story:  A New Look at Spirituality.

Cancer Today: Spring 2014

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The release of the Spring 2014 issue of Cancer Today was timed to align with AACR_SPR14_CVR_HIGHRES-158x203-WEBthe annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

I’m pleased to report that our editors who attended the conference earlier this month received a lot of positive feedback about the magazine and its importance to the cancer community.

Included in this issue’s Forward Look section, which I assign and edit, are these articles:

• Push Needed to Increase HPV Vaccination Rates, an article I wrote on a new report by the President’s Cancer Panel that describes what needs to be done to increase the number of girls and boys in the U.S. who are vaccinated against HPV, the virus responsible for cervical and other cancers.

• An Herbal Surprise, which discusses a recent study that showed that the herbal supplements you take may not contain the ingredients you thought you bought. Some herbal supplements include ingredients not listed on the label while others fail to even include the primary plant ingredient.

• Moving Closer to a Menthol Ban? This story describes the work anti-tobacco advocates are doing worldwide to get countries to outlaw menthol in tobacco products. Will the U.S. Food and Drug Administration take action?

• Clues to Stomach Cancer Discovered in South America. Did you know that more than half the world’s population is infected with a stomach bacteria called H. pylori, which is the primary cause of stomach cancer? This article describes new findings that may help researchers understand why in some people the infection causes no problem while in others it can be deadly.

• ACA to Cover Breast Cancer Reduction Drugs, an article I wrote on the two drugs that are available for high-rsk women for chemoprevention, and why they are underused.

11-Forward-Look-Gazing-on-Cancer-250x354-WEBYou can also read a short piece I wrote, Gazing on Cancer, about a new Italian ad campaign featuring a bald Mona Lisa that was recently launched by Fondazione ANT Italia. (And a shout out to Google Translate, which made it effortless to write my email in Italian to their press contact.)

Lastly, to get a good understanding of the new cancer treatments that are attempting to harness the power of the immune system, take a look at Unleashing the Immune System. All eyes (and lots of money) are on this new approach to cancer.

The Vaporizing of Big Tobacco

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As a journalist, I get a lot of press releases. Most of them come from people who have done a bit of research and know that I cover health. But there are others that are kind of random, like the one I received not that long ago from Sarah, the community manager for Ophis, “the premier luxurious electronic cigarette,” which, she wanted me to know, was “the new must have fashion accessory for 2014.”

I am not sure how Sarah got my name. Maybe it was because I had recently written a P-15-Blu-E-Cig-Ad-250x359-WEBshort piece for Cancer Today P-15-Marlborough-250x335-WEBhighlighting the advertising tactics used by e-cigarette companies and the ways in which they echo cigarette ad campaigns from years past.

(You can see more at Stanford Research Into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising.)

Maybe she saw my article on the graphic health warnings the FDA was hoping to force tobacco P11-3D-Cigarettes-200x225-WEBmanufacturers to put on cigarette packages in the U.S. Or the one I wrote on the graphic plain packaging now required in Australia.

Then again, it could have been my article about Yul Brynner and his haunting anti-smoking PSA, which ran on television stations worldwide within days of his death from lung cancer in 1985.

She might also have known that I had recently assigned and edited  articles for Cancer Today on the controversy over e-cigarettes.

Sarah’s press release included some “cool facts” about Ophis and “its stylish look and appeal.” She also said this:

 

An article from you = a discount on Ophis.us

We will also promote your post and give your blog the opportunity of reaching a new audience of 1.3K fans on our Facebook page, 9.3K on Twitter, and 300 daily visitors on Ophis.us

I look forward to hearing back from you. Please contact me for more information on Media Inquiry at Sarah@Ophis.us.

Of course, no journalist of any merit would publish something on a blog hoping to get a discount on a product. But feel free to let Sarah know that you saw my post.

News from Cancer Today

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As a contributing editor for Cancer Today, the magazine published by the American Association for Cancer Research, I’ve been quite busy keeping on top of the latest cancer research; developing, assigning, and editing news and feature stories; and enjoying getting to know the people behind our bylines.

Some highlights include:

• Telling the Tale, my Q&A with medical oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies

• The Proof of the Proton Is in the Result, a piece I assigned and edited that notes that, despite the buzz over this new technology, “ForardLook_ProtonTherapy_350x227webno one knows if proton beam radiation is really better than standard X-ray treatment—an important consideration particularly for the prostate cancer patients to whom it is already heavily marketed.”

• Paying a Steep Price, an article  I assigned and edited on new laws that are pushing health insurers to make oral cancer drugs affordable. As this story explains, “Over the past five years, cancer organizations and advocacy groups has pushed 26 states and the District of Columbia to pass oral parity laws,” which require that oral cancer medications be treated as chemotherapy given in a doctor’s office and billed as a routine visit.

• Lung Cancer Screening for Smokers, an article I wrote on the new recommendation by the United States Preventive Services Task Force P10-Lungs-350x257-WEBto screen individuals at high risk for lung cancer with low-dose CT scans. The recommendation followed National Lung Screening Trial results which showed that current and former smokers who received regular CT scans were 20 percent less likely to die of lung cancer than those receiving routine chest X-rays.

• Changing Perceptions of Palliative Care, a Q&A with Judith Redwing Keyssar on the importance of pallliative care, which I assigned and edited. As the article explains, “Studies have found that 70 percent of the U.S. public is unfamiliar with palliative care … which can be offered from the moment a patient begins treatment.”

• African-American Women May Benefit Less From HPV Vaccine, an article I assigned and edited after research results showed that less than 40 percent of African-American women carried HPV-16 and HPV-18, compared with 65 percent of white women. HPV-16 and HPV-18, the two HPV subtypes the HPV vaccines target, are responsible for 70 percent of all cervical cancers.

• New Insights Into Pediatric Cancer, my article on a recent discovery that may help explain tumor growth in children. It typically takes decades for normal cells to accumulate all the genetic errors necessary to become cancer cells—this helps explain why a person’s cancer risk increases with age. But when it comes to pediatric cancers this explanation falls short, as it cannot account for the speed with which cancer develops in children. The new finding suggests one reason may be how cellular pathways spur cancer growth in these tumors.