here's an interesting story we'll cover pop culture much but this story has so
many interesting implications that i do want to discuss it
angelina jolie
revealed that she underwent
preventive double mastectomy surgery she revealed this in the new york times and
had
uh... breast implants
put in as well and she put together an opinion piece called my medical choice
and she explained that she has this mutated b_r_c_a_ one gene
which is known to significantly raised any woman's risk of breast and ovarian
cancers
she decided as a preventive measure it at age thirty seven
topper maybe shes thirty-six at the time that that this was done
she said my doctors estimated i had an eighty-seven percent risk of breast
cancer
and a fifty percent risk of ovarian cancer although the risk is different in
the case of each woman
all leah fraction of breast cancers result from an inherited gene mutation
those with a defect in b_r_c_a_ one have a sixty five percent risk of getting it
on average so
uh... so it was really was just last month that she completed all the
mastectomy procedures including the breast reconstruction with an implant
and she wrote i wanted to write this to tell other women but the decision to
have a mastectomy was not easy but it is what i am very happy i made my chances
of developing breast cancer has have dropped from eighty seven percent to
less than five percent
c_n_n_ recently reported
on a study which showed that this preventive mastectomy also known as
prophylactic mastectomy is more common in the u_s_ than in other countries and
i've i'd seen and read quite a lot about women choosing to have this procedure or
choosing not to have it or or thinking about having it
and
this this it's not identical to this but this is like one of those hypothetical
questions that kids often ask each other hate
would you
agree to have an arm removed if you had in ninety nine percent chance of living
to a hundred and fifty years old or something like that but this is real
life
the numbers are a little different angelina jolie presented the numbers
that she was working with
and these are really tough decisions that people make to decide
i have no disease right now
but doctors are telling me
that my brisk
is such
that i potentially
long-term and and going to improve my health and
move my my well being
by having
about the part of my body removed
and when we read about it i don't think a lot of people understand the
difficulty making these types of decisions
yeah uh...
unimar khalid there is
reconstructive surgery and and and her case i guess you call it that i mean
uh...
but uh...
yeah i can't imagine having to at being faced with that decision
the other thing which this makes me think of is is an issue of health care
in access right
uh... not everybody
even is aware that this
gene mutation exists and that you can have it tested
and then of course we have the the issue of making the making an informed
decision
to have her not have a mastectomy and then of course
being able to afford it and in the possibility of being able to afford
breast reconstruction city you can still to some extent feel
the way that you did before you had apart of your body
removed and idon't know exactly what my thoughts about a dollar i mean i
understand that
it's not really in angelina jolie
verses middle-class type of issue it's really more of a middle-class verses
poor class
is she'll
and i don't know i don't know exactly what it is i find myself wanting to say
about it but i know that there's something here because not everybody can
afford to do brentwood angelina jolie debt
well you can get into the at the hall
war on cancer treatments uh...
costs uh... prominent relation the panel country rent because it patents right
and the whole profit thing profit off cancer treatment of course is
astronomical
and you can get in the conspiracy theories about uh...
you know tears and and corporate first remain
and they are really know what to say about it other than uh... i guess is
important for people to learn that they can be tested for this
and it's possible there will be covered by health insurance but uh...
uh... but in any case uh... send me your thoughts and in what would with the
numbers angelina jolie presents eighty seven percent
with that make you decide i'm going to have to have an appt on the preventive
lee
both of my breasts removed
would you do it only if you knew you could have either because you can afford
it or or it was covered
the breast reconstruction
uh... would you do it either way abg send your thoughts and very curious to
hear what people think about this