Tag Archives: Sheryl Crow

My October Blues

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October used to be one of my favorite months: the brilliant blue sky, the sharp crispness of the air, the beautiful turning of the leaves, and the fact that my birthday was just a few days before Halloween.  But 8 years ago, that all changed.

Back in October 2007, I had finally completed my chemotherapy.  I’d finished the uncomfortable tissue expansion sessions that were part of my reconstruction.  And the tissue expanders had finally been replaced with my silicone implants. But on that day, the fact was that I was still healing, completely exhausted, in the throes of so-called “chemo brain,” and once again hiding my bald head beneath a scarf to protect my scalp from the newly cold temperatures.  I’d just stepped into the grocery store and was dragging myself from aisle to aisle, trying to find something–anything–that might appeal to me, since everything I ate still tasted like it was thickly coated with metal.  And although I’d been wearing scarves or a wig while at work or out in public for many months, I was feeling more subconscious than usual–because everywhere I looked (and I do mean everywhere), all I could see was light pink, dark pink, muted pink, bold pink.   The yogurt, the soup cans, the magazines, the cash registers themselves, balloons (really, balloons?)—they were all covered with pink ribbons announcing “Breast Cancer Awareness Month.”   Of course, I’d noticed the ribbons during Octobers past, and I’d been donating to the American Cancer Society and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for many years. But on this day, I was seeing the ribbons with a completely different, somewhat embarrassed, and resentful perspective.  Perhaps selfishly, thanks to those Pink PINK Ribbons RIBBONS everywhere, I felt like there was an immense, gaudy, Coney Island-like flashing pink arrow in the air pointing directly at me.  And just minutes later, a stranger apparently did notice that strange ribbon-shaped arrow hovering over my head.  She walked right up to me in the produce aisle, leaned over, and whispered, “I like your scarf.  And I wanted to tell you that just about a year ago, I was exactly where you are today.  I’d just completed my treatment for breast cancer, my hair was just starting to grow back, and I felt like I’d been through hell and back. Was your diagnosis breast cancer, too? I wanted you to know that you’ll get through this and that you’re going to be just fine.”

She was a sweet person, and I did truly appreciate her kindness.  But I was also mortified.  I hated being so conspicuous–and quite honestly, I felt like a woman who was pregnant when complete strangers felt they had the right to touch her stomach. It was hard enough for me to go out in public every day exhausted, pale as a ghost, and without hair, hiding that fact beneath my scarves or my wig, so I essentially felt “outed,” albeit by a woman who had been through what I was experiencing and showing her support and kindness.  By the time I finally got out of the store, just the thought of a pink ribbon worsened the metal taste in my mouth.

AngryDog

Since that time, the pink ribbons in October have become more ubiquitous than the falling autumn leaves. They are at the heart of cause-related marketing, where it’s nearly impossible to get through a day in October without seeing a pink breast cancer awareness tee shirt, a pink fuel truck, pink blenders, pink guns (yes, really: guns!), pink beribboned bottled water containing BPA (a known cancer carcinogen), NFL players running onto the field in their pink gloves and socks, and on and on and on it goes.  But what many people still do not realize is that some of those companies that slap pink ribbons onto their products every October actually do not contribute to breast cancer research–or, in other cases, make contributions that are not tied to the purchase of the pink products in question.

That’s bad enough.  But in my humble opinion, there’s something much much worse–and that’s the steady stream of inaccurate, misleading, and downright false “facts” about breast cancer that appear everywhere you turn, “feel-good” story after feel-good story in every newspaper, magazine, and grocery store circular, and interviews touting how this or that celebrity “beat” breast cancer.  So this October, I’ve decided to do my best to debunk some of the myths that have become nearly as ubiquitous as those pink ribbons.

The first that immediately comes to mind is one of the most frustrating, because there are some in the medical community and a number of breast cancer organizations that continue to perpetuate this myth. You guessed it: “Mammography saves lives.” Or said another way, “mammography can only help women and couldn’t do any harm.” Believing these statements leads to a dark slippery slope paved with additional myths, falsehoods, and misunderstandings:

“She must not have gone for her annual mammograms: otherwise, she wouldn’t have been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer.”

FALSE!

“After all, no one dies of breast cancer anymore.”

FALSE!

KomenAd with circle

Remember the 2011 ad above from Susan G. Komen–which has been described as the “most widely known, largest, and best-funded breast cancer organization in the United States”?  (The red circle cross-out is mine.)

The good news is that when this ad was released, Komen came under fire from scientific experts and knowledgeable patients and advocates due to its misleading statistics and its “blame the victim” message.  In fact, two professors from the Center for Medicine and the Media at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin, published an essay in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) (2012;345:e5132) stating that Komen’s 2011 Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaign “overstates the benefit of mammography and ignores the harms altogether.  A growing and increasingly accepted body of evidence shows that although screening may reduce a woman’s chance of dying from breast cancer by a small amount, it also causes major harms, say the authors.  Yet Komen’s public advertising campaign gives women no sense that screening is a close call.  Instead it states that the key to surviving breast cancer is for women to get screened because ‘early detection saves lives. The 5-year survival rate for breast cancer when caught early is 98%. When it’s not? 23%.’ This benefit of mammography looks so big that it is hard to imagine why any woman would forgo screening.  But the authors explain that comparing survival between screened and unscreened women is ‘hopelessly biased.’ For example, imagine a group of 100 women who received diagnoses of breast cancer because they felt a breast lump at age 67, all of whom die at age 70. Five year survival for this group is 0%.  Now imagine the women were screened, given their diagnosis three years earlier, at age 64, but still die at age 70.  Five year survival is now 100%, even though no one lived a second longer. Overdiagnosis (the detection of cancers that will not kill or even cause symptoms during a patient’s lifetime) also distorts survival statistics because the numbers now include people who have a diagnosis of cancer but who, by definition, survive the cancer, the authors added.  If there were an Oscar for misleading statistics, using survival statistics to judge the benefit of screening would win a lifetime achievement award hands down, they wrote.”

Even more alarmingly, these authors conducted a survey where they “found that most US primary care doctors also mistakenly interpret improved survival as evidence that screening saves lives.  Mammography certainly sounds better when stated in terms of improving five year survival – from 23% to 98%, a difference of 75 percentage points. But in terms of its actual benefit, mammography can reduce the chance that a woman in her 50s will die from breast cancer over the next 10 years from 0.53% to 0.46%, a difference of 0.07 percentage points.  The Komen advertisement also ignores the harms of screening.  The authors noted that for every cancer detected by mammography, ‘around two to 10 women are overdiagnosed.’ These women cannot benefit from unnecessary chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery.  All they do experience is harm.”

AngryCrab1

The emphasis on the term “overdiagnosed” is mine:  because overselling of screening mammography has resulted in an enormous increase in the number of women who are treated for breast cancer–but most of whom would never have developed breast cancer if left untreated.  The fact is that for women of average risk, screening mammography has led to a dramatic increase in the diagnosis of Ductal Carcinoma in Situ (DCIS).  DCIS, which is an overgrowth of cells in the milk ducts, lacks the ability to spread, and more are beginning to argue that its description as “breast cancer stage 0” is a misnomer—because DCIS is not in fact cancer.  Rather, as breast surgeon and breast cancer oncology specialist, Dr. Laura Esserman, has described it, DCIS “is a risk factor for cancer. Many of these lesions have only a 5 percent chance of becoming cancer over 10 years.”   However, because there is not yet a way to accurately predict which patients are at most risk of progression to invasive disease, most cases of DCIS are treated aggressively, e.g., with breast-conserving surgery (lumpectomy), radiation, mastectomy, and/or in some cases, hormonal therapy. It’s been estimated that DCIS comprises up to 30 percent of “breast cancer” diagnoses. Yet for the majority with DCIS, the precancerous lesions will stay in place (i.e., “in situ”), will not become invasive, and therefore will never pose a life-threatening risk.  The result: overtreatment, where hundreds of thousands of women are undergoing aggressive cancer treatment and at risk for such treatment’s adverse and potentially late effects when they may not have needed such treatment. (Fortunately, ongoing research is taking place, including validation studies of an OncotypeDx for DCIS, with the goal of helping to identify patients who may need less aggressive therapy or no treatment other than “watchful waiting.”)

So the story of screening mammography for DCIS is not a success story.  Nor has it been a success story in detecting late-stage disease. As Dr. Esserman has stressed, if life-threatening breast cancers began as DCIS, the incidence of invasive breast cancers should have steeply declined with increasing detection rates. However, that has not occurred.

More Myths

However, cause marketing is not the only source of misleading or inaccurate breast cancer “facts.”  Breast cancer misinformation is often compounded or reinforced by celebrities who are breast cancer survivors. Remember Melissa Etheridge’s outrageous comments in AARP Magazine, when she and her buddy, Sheryl Crow, discussed how “They Beat Cancer” and provided “Lessons for All of Us”?  (Yes, I’m still furious.)  With just the headline, before the article even began, AARP’s magazine managed to perpetuate dangerous myths and to condescend to every one of their readers: women, men, those who have had or are currently receiving treatment for breast cancer, those who have lost loved ones to this terrible group of cancers, and those who will be impacted by breast cancer in the future.   Let’s start with the statement “beat cancer.”  It’s fortunate that both singers are doing so well and that their treatment has been effective for them to this point.  But tragically, approximately 25% of women with breast cancer have a recurrence, where the cancer has returned—and for women with estrogen-receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer, nearly 33 percent experience a recurrence.  Furthermore, over half of recurrences for ER+ breast cancer are detected more than 5 years following original treatment, in some cases decades later, as opposed to other breast cancer types that tend to recur within 5 years of the original diagnosis.  Research suggests that late relapse is most likely due to “tumor dormancy,” where there is a prolonged phase between cancer treatment and detected evidence of disease progression.  It’s thought that cancer cells that were able to escape the patient’s initial treatment are able to survive by hiding in a latent state for years or decades, ultimately coming out of dormancy and leading to incurable breast cancer metastases. So the important truth here is that we currently have no way of knowing who has “beat” breast cancer.  As Dr. Susan Love has explained, “Breast cancer can be cured.  In fact, we cure three-quarters of breast cancer; the problem is when somebody is diagnosed with breast cancer, we can’t tell that woman that she is cured—until she dies at 95 of something else.  So, we know we cure breast cancer, but we never know if any one particular person is cured at any one time.” Crow was reportedly diagnosed with stage I ER+ breast cancer.  Although Etheridge has disclosed that her cancer was stage II and that she has a mutated BRCA2 gene, I was not able to locate the hormone receptor or HER2 status of her breast cancer.  Though I sincerely hope that neither ever develops a recurrence, we simply cannot know whether either woman is “cured” of her breast cancer.

It was also infuriating to me when Etheridge, scientific expert that she is, said in the same interview: “This was my own doing, and I take responsibility.  When I got my body back in balance, my cancer disappeared.”  Excuse me? Breast cancer is NOBODY’S FAULT.  And no, her cancer didn’t “disappear” because she made healthy changes for her body. Sure, eating well and having a healthy lifestyle certainly is a smart choice for everyone.  But Etheridge no longer has any evidence of disease because she was treated for her cancer including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.

The Politics

And then there is Debbie Wasserman Schultz: since we know that if a politician is a breast cancer survivor, she’s an automatic expert on the science of breast cancer, right?  Schultz–like so many politicians before her–apparently has no use for inconvenient evidence.  When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)’s recently updated its guidelines for screening mammography based on scientific evidence, she loudly protested and politicized the issue.  In an interview with Marie-Claire last year, she was asked the following:

MC: “What do you make of the fact that so many health care organizations no longer advise young women to do breast self-exams?”

DWS: “To say that I don’t agree with recommendations that say women shouldn’t get mammograms at 40 or that self-exams aren’t necessary would be an understatement.  It is entirely appropriate and recommended to have a mammogram between 40 and 50.  If I didn’t do self-exams, I never would have found out about my BRCA2 mutation, which gave me a 40 to 85 percent chance of developing ovarian cancer by the time I was 50.  I mean, I was a ticking time bomb and I didn’t know it!  To me, those recommendations send a very strong message to younger women that they’re being written off—that they don’t matter.”

What Schultz didn’t say is that the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommendations stress the following: “The decision to start screening mammography in women prior to age 50 years should be an individual one.  Women who place a higher value on the potential benefit than the potential harms may choose to begin biennial screening between the ages of 40 and 49 years.”  Importantly, they also emphasize that “Women with a parent, sibling, or child with breast cancer may benefit more than average-risk women from beginning screening between the ages of 40 and 49 years.”

Schultz, joined by 61 other legislators, sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, where they asked that the department ignore the new draft guidance by the USPSTF—in other words, asking that the department ignore the evidence.  Schultz used her own story to make her case: “As a young survivor of breast cancer who was diagnosed at age 41, I am a living testament to the importance of breast cancer awareness in young women.  It is imperative that no one limits the insurance coverage of preventative options for young women, especially if they have an elevated risk.  While mammograms are not the only important part of preventative coverage, they play a vital role in detecting cancer in young women, in whom it is most deadly, and in raising breast health awareness.”

But did mammography actually “play a vital role” in detecting her cancer?  She has stated that she “had my first mammogram a few months before I found the lump” and that if the Task Force’s recommendation had been in place, she may not have had a mammogram and her own cancer would “not have been caught early.”   What’s more, she said, “We know that there are women that [sic] will die if this recommendation goes through.”  Yet here’s the thing: in a 2013 Glamour Magazine interview, she said that “My diagnosis was a couple of months after a clean mammogram. I had aggressive breast cancer, and it grew fast from the time I had my mammogram, or it was there and the mammogram missed it. Nothing is foolproof. You can’t make yourself crazy, but you have to be vigilant.”  So apparently, screening mammography did NOT detect her breast cancer.  Schultz’s own story does not support the case she has been trying to make so vociferously.

SharkComic3

Perpetuating the Myths

But something that I saw recently is probably the most upsetting of all.  On its Facebook page, BreastCancer.org shared responses from members of their Facebook community to the following question:

“It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Are there issues you feel are not getting enough attention?”

The responses concerning the topic of screening demonstrated the tremendous harm that results from the misinformation so freely distributed throughout October (and all year round). Here are just a few responses:

“Mammograms for 40 years upwards.”

 “Earlier mammograms!!!”

I began mammograms at 30 BC of questionable cysts and got Dx at age 49!  They should start mammos at age 30. Maybe have them every two years. Raising age to 50 is nuts.  I’ve had many friends Dx well before age 50.”

Earlier screening mammograms? How early? How young is too young: 40, 30, 20, 15? How many more women will be overdiagnosed and overtreated before the insanity stops?

But I do want to end my October rant on a high note.  The same BreastCancer.org blog also shared some responses concerning the critical topic of metastatic breast cancer–responses showing that there may be more and more folks who are seeing through all those pink ribbons to the truths about breast cancer:

“Stage IV Needs More!!!”

“More attention and funding to metastatic breast cancer, and less attention to ‘awareness.’  Even 3rd graders are aware!”

“Stage IV research.  Not enough of it.  Stage IV life expectancy.  Not enough of it…”

Bravo: Less attention to “awareness” and more to Stage IV and the critical need for metastatic breast cancer research funding.  So enough with the pink ribbon campaigns.  Ignore the celebrities who abuse the public platform they’ve been given to further spread misinformation.  And a big, firm wave good-bye to politicians who ignore inconvenient facts and use their power and influence to determine what’s best for us–since apparently we don’t know any better.

Incidentally, the nice woman who came up to me in the grocery store may or may not have been correct when she said, “I wanted you to know that you’ll get through this and that you’re going to be just fine.”  My breast cancer was ER+, so I’ll never know whether my breast cancer was cured–unless it recurs or I peacefully pass away of old age in my sleep.  The latter, please.

SharkComic2

A huge thank you to my sister, Ann-Dee, for these wonderful illustrations, which perfectly capture the sentiments I wanted to convey here.

On NOT Looking to Melissa Etheridge, Sheryl Crow, and the AARP for Life’s Guidance

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I wasn’t going to write about this until I calmed down a bit and had a more rationale, less irate perspective.  But it’s been a few weeks now, I’m still angry … and I found an absolutely perfect quote from masterful songwriter and poet Bob Dylan that I couldn’t let go to waste.  So here it goes …

“It’s not a good idea and it’s bad luck to look for life’s guidance to popular entertainers.”

~Bob Dylan                                                                                                                                               

Bob Dylan

I truly wish the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) had listened to this very sage advice.  When I came across the recent article in AARP The Magazine that began with the title, “Sheryl Crow and Melissa Etheridge Beat Cancer and Heartbreak,” the warning bells went off immediately in my head.  And then I read the next line: “The music legends teach us a thing or two about living with joy.”  My vision went red.

In just 2 lines, before the article even began, AARP’s magazine managed to perpetuate dangerous myths and to condescend to every one of their readers: women, men, those who have had or are currently receiving treatment for breast cancer, those who have lost loved ones to this terrible group of cancers, and those who will be impacted by breast cancer in the future.

Let’s start with the statement “beat cancer.”  It’s wonderful that both of the singers are doing so well and that their treatment has been effective for them to this point.  But tragically, approximately 25% of women with breast cancer have a recurrence, where the cancer has returned—and for women with estrogen-receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer, nearly 33 percent experience a recurrence.  Furthermore, over half of recurrences for ER+ breast cancer are detected more than 5 years following their original treatment, including after decades, as opposed to other breast cancer types that tend to recur within 5 years of the original diagnosis.  Research suggests that late relapse is most likely due to “tumor dormancy,” where there is a prolonged phase between cancer treatment and detected evidence of disease progression.  It’s thought that cancer cells that were able to escape the patient’s initial treatment are able to survive by hiding in a latent state for years or decades, ultimately coming out of dormancy and leading to incurable breast cancer metastases.

So the important truth here is that we currently have no way of knowing who has “beat” breast cancer.  As Dr. Susan Love has explained, “Breast cancer can be cured.  In fact, we cure three-quarters of breast cancer; the problem is when somebody is diagnosed with breast cancer, we can’t tell that woman that she is cured—until she dies at 95 of something else.  So, we know we cure breast cancer, but we never know if any one particular person is cured at any one time.”

Crow was reportedly diagnosed with stage I ER+ breast cancer.  Although Etheridge has disclosed that her cancer was stage II and that she has a mutated BRCA2 gene, I was not able to locate her type of breast cancer.  Though I sincerely hope that neither ever develops a recurrence, we simply cannot know whether either woman is “cured” of her breast cancer.

And this brings me to the second line and the accompanying image, partially titled “Lessons for All of Us.”  Seriously? From two people who happen to have the stage because they’re famous singers?  As you’ll see below  (and I apologize, since I suspect many of you are just as weary of seeing this as I am), the image is accompanied by “words of wisdom” from both of the singers.  I have to say that Crow’s comments were comme ci, comme ça.  I do wish that she’d used the passive rather than the active voice when discussing screening mammograms.  In other words, rather than saying “I recommend …” it would have been much more appropriate to say something along the lines of this: “It’s recommended that women at average risk for breast cancer receive regular screening mammograms beginning at either 40 or 50 years of age based on their health team’s guidance and their personal preference.  And women at high risk may be advised to begin receiving regular mammograms at age 40 years or younger.”  I recognize that this is not nearly as “pithy” as what Crow did say–and as a writer, I’m typically not a fan of the passive voice, but this is one of those examples where it’s truly appropriate.  This may have been an opportunity to emphasize what the evidence has found and to contribute to the ongoing conversation by noting the current disagreement in screening mammography recommendations between the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force and the American Cancer Society–IMHO, an opportunity that was lost.  But for the most part, Crow’s comments were relatively thoughtful, whereas those of her friend, Etheridge, were, quite frankly, appalling, condescending, and downright dangerous.

Let’s start with the very first quote in the image from Etheridge: “Take Charge: This was of my own doing, and I take responsibility. When I got my body back into balance, the cancer disappeared.”  But here’s the thing: Breast cancer is nobody’s fault.  And her cancer didn’t “disappear” because she made healthy changes for her body:  rather, there is no longer any evidence of disease because she received treatment for her cancer.

its_all_my_fault3

And you don’t have to look far to find similar statements she’s made in the past.  In an interview with More Magazine, entitled “Melissa Etheridge’s battle with breast cancer,” (why always with the war metaphor?), she was asked what she is doing differently now in terms of her emotional and physical health.  Her response: “I have a very strong belief that this cure that we’re looking for is inside us.  The cancer is just a symptom of our bodies being out of balance and the cure is to understand health. It’s to understand our bodies and our spirits—our souls—better.”

Okay, let me see whether I’ve gotten this straight.  Cancer as “just a symptom”? because we’ve allowed our bodies to become “out of balance”?  Has Etheridge ever heard of “blaming the victim?”  I repeat: breast cancer is nobody’s fault.  The main risk factor for developing breast cancer is this: simply being a woman.  And the fact is that our risk for breast cancer increases as we become older.  I’ve known several wonderful women now who were remarkably fit, were extremely careful of what they ate, who ran or swam or went to the gym regularly, who developed breast cancer– stage I, II, and III and some who later developed stage IV disease–though their bodies “were in balance.”  Was “understanding health” the “cure” for their metastatic breast cancer?  I think not.

Sheryl Crow and Melissa Etheridge

From “AARP The Magazine”

And here’s another “quotable quote” from Etheridge:  “To Test or Not to Test:  I have the BRCA2 gene but don’t encourage women to get tested.  Genes can be turned on and off.  I turned my gene on with my very poor diet.”  Did she really just say that?  This statement is misleading, offensive, and completely irresponsible.  Unfortunately, the sad truth is that some folks listen to celebrities and take what they say seriously—no matter how inaccurate or ignorant.  This means that Etheridge has a responsibility when she’s speaking to the public.  She has every right to tell her story and to express her opinions—but while making it clear that they are just that, her opinions.  She is not a doctor, yet what she has done is akin to giving “medical advice” that is woefully inaccurate.  She has no right to discourage women from getting testing: the decision of whether to test or not is a very personal and complicated decision that must be based on the evidence, their medical team’s and a genetic counselor’s guidance, and their specific situation.  Etheridge also shows a complete lack of understanding concerning the role that BRCA2 gene mutations play in breast cancer.  The BRCA2 gene mutation does not get “turned on or off” due to choice of diet.  Rather, we have 2 copies of the BRCA2 gene and the BRCA1 gene, which belong to a class known as “tumor suppressor genes.”  The genes encode instructions for making proteins that are involved in repairing damaged DNA.  It’s believed that the mutated BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes’ mutated or missing BRCA protein is not able to help repair damaged DNA or mutations in other genes, causing accumulation of such defects, in turn enabling cells to divide and grow uncontrollably, forming a tumor.  Hundreds of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations have been identified, with many associated with an increased risk of breast cancer.  Those who are born with such mutations of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene have an increased risk of breast, ovarian, and other cancers due to lack of a working copy of one of the genes.   So Etheridge’s extremely misleading statement is dangerous for several reasons, since it may:

  • Cause those at high risk to blame themselves for developing cancer that was due to a genetic predisposition.
  • Mislead them about an ability to prevent cancer solely with changes in diet.
  • Prevent some from pursuing genetic testing, which in turn may have resulted in their receiving medical interventions that have been found to expand the lives of those with BRCA mutations.
From "AARP The Magazine"

From “AARP The Magazine”

I forced myself to finish reading the entire article, but the last line was another kick in the teeth–a yeah-rah-rah moment: “Cancer, [Crow and Etheridge] agree, has become something they never imagined. ‘A gift,’ they say, almost in unison.”  Perhaps they should have posed in cheerleading outfits with pom-poms rather than those leather jackets?

dancing-cheerleader_zJxctuBO

I do need to pull back on the sarcasm for a moment.  To her credit, Crow has lent her name to the Pink Lotus Imaging Center.  On their website, the Pink Lotus Imaging Center is described as “a comprehensive and integrative breast center exclusively dedicated to the prevention, screening, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer.  Headquartered in Los Angeles and founded in 2007, our first location in Beverly Hills was unveiled in 2009.  Since then, we have become a respected leader and innovator in the field of comprehensive breast care.”  And their mission statement is very impressive, warm, and reassuring:

“Our organization was founded with a strong dedication to one clear purpose: To provide the best breast care medically and technologically possible while providing our patients with an environment where they can feel at home; where prevention and wellness matters as much as life-saving treatment; where patients are treated like human beings, not numbers; where integrative medicine is not just a marketing slogan but rather the essence of what we practice; and where women are provided with security and confidence when they need it most. We pride ourselves on the simple fact that our organization’s DNA  was custom-tailored with one person in mind – you!”

But with that said, it’s crucial that both Etheridge and Crow understand and respect the responsibility they have to present their opinions as opinions, not facts or advice.  AARP The Magazine notes that “The two women now say that battling the disease and coming out on the other side deeply transformed them, shaping them into who they are today: survivors, role models, and advocates for social awareness and change.”  Let’s hope that in the future, they’ll both be responsible advocates who can genuinely and helpfully contribute to the conversation.  Otherwise, perhaps Etheridge in particular should stick to the singing.  And until AARP better understands its responsibility to its members and readers as well, perhaps it’s time for those of us who are 50 years of age and older to consider looking for another organization who shows more respect to its members and to the facts.

Update:

A “Non-Apology” Apology from Melissa Etheridge and AARP: Did We Expect Any Less?

Concerning the recent, highly deserved backlash unleashed in response to  AARP The Magazine’s  article with Melisa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow, some of my fellow advocates have eloquently raised a critical point.  They’ve stressed the importance of understanding and remembering the many ways in which those of us who have received this terrible diagnosis form beliefs and make choices to regain a semblance of control.   As an advocate, my first role was serving as a peer mentor for newly diagnosed women with breast cancer.  Like Melissa Etheridge, some focused much of their attention on diet and exercise to try to retain or regain some control after feeling that their world had rocked off its axis.  In many ways, I took steps to try to protect myself as well after my own diagnosis: eventually, my road toward getting back a sense of control took the form of becoming actively engaged as a breast cancer research advocate.  Of course, everyone’s road is different, and everyone’s choice is just that, a choice.

Melissa Etheridge undoubtedly shared many of the same fears that so many of us do—and I understand that some folks tend to forget that in the aura of her celebrity.  Yet with that said, as I discussed in this blog post, I feel very strongly that with her celebrity comes Responsibility, with a capital “R.”  As of today, she has 64.8 thousand followers on Twitter and  462,204 likes on Facebook—and the AARP’s Facebook page has well over 1 million likes.  So when Etheridge shares what is framed as advice, for better or worse, she has an audience of millions.   As a woman who has had a terribly frightening diagnosis, she is absolutely entitled to believe whatever she needs to to get through.  But she also needs to understand that when she speaks, so many (in my humble opinion, far too many) people listen—so I sincerely hoped that she would learn from this and would be careful to frame her opinions as her own, rather than as Gospel.

Etheridge on Twitter

I also do feel that the AARP and “AARP The Magazine” holds the lion’s share of the responsibility here.  Their editorial team made a grave error when determining how to frame this article, dangerously misleading their millions of members and the general public.  Unfortunately and upsettingly, they still haven’t recognized this.  Since this backlash began, the only statement I see that has been issued by AARP is the following, as quoted in “USA Today”:

“Robert Love, editor in chief of ‘AARP Magazine,’ said in a statement that his magazine didn’t ‘take a position or prescribe medical recommendations for breast cancer testing or treatment’ and “did not intend for the views expressed in the article to be interpreted as medical advice.”  Interesting comment, since the image included with the article was entitled “How They Beat Cancer … LESSONS for All of Us.”  In addition, AARP The Magazine’s Facebook page still has a picture of Melissa Etheridge and Sheryl Crow as their cover photo, and the FB Profile Picture also shows the two singers from the magazine’s cover.

And when Etheridge was asked about the backlash in this same “USA Today” article, her response was that “she’s been misunderstood’ and that “I was sad there was such a negative response to what I said.”  She also stated that “I knew all along there would be people who disagreed.  I never wanted that to stop me from saying anything.  I can’t control the way people understand something.”

Misunderstood

 

In another article, published in “Dame Magazine,” where she was again questioned about the backlash, Etheridge responded with the following: “People think it’s dangerous for me to say, ‘Hey, maybe there’s more than just this one way of looking at cancer,’ and they think that’s dangerous because they believe in science, and I understand that totally, and 11 years ago, I was with them. I understood that. In my discoveries, I think that maybe if someone is confronted with this, that maybe this other thought might be helpful for them. For some people, but not all always [Laughs.].”

She was also asked about why she engaged in a Twitter war of words with blogger, “Boing Boing” editor, and breast cancer survivor Xeni Jardin, whose recent blog has this wonderful title, “AARP runs vomit-inducing, quackery-filled breast cancer piece with Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge.”  Etheridge noted, “The reason I did that was it seemed like, all of a sudden, in that one day, I got just a barrage of really awful, awful stuff. Like people standing up on a wall going, ‘Na-na-na-na-na-na. You’re awful,’ and I was like, what? Why do they want to pick a fight with me? I don’t understand, and so I was reading everybody, and some  just want to be mean. Some people do, yet Xeni is a cancer survivor herself. I have always wanted to present myself as, ‘This is just my experience,’ and I felt I was being misunderstood, and I love real conversation, not just okay, I answered this person’s questions. This company put it in a magazine, and then they’re making their comments on it, but no, talk to me. What’s your question? What don’t you understand? This is how I feel, and you’re going to believe what you believe. Just why put so much bitterness and ugliness out toward me? I don’t understand that. Help me understand that, and we can have a conversation about it.”

Twitter wars

Heavy sigh.  So once again, it’s not about the evidence but about poor misunderstood Melissa Etheridge.  Yes, for those of us who are so concerned about the damage done by this article, who still and will always “believe in science,” our true goal here was simply to “pick a fight” with Etheridge, and yes, we really do “ just want to be mean.”  As Etheridge said, “What?!”  Really, is there no limit to this woman’s solipsism and narcissism?  This may be extremely surprising to Etheridge, but no, not everything is about her.  The point, again, is that she’s used her all-too-large platform to spread falsehoods wrapped in the guise of “advice” by AARP in their “special health issue,” to millions who take the words of celebrities seriously.  This is about those millions.

So when all is said and done, no apology.  Not a word about the facts.  Not from AARP.  Not from Etheridge.  Not from “AARP The Magazine.”  All we’re left with are Etheridge’s and AARP’s “Non-Apology Apologies.”   In Etheridge’s case, I wish her well, but the only “lesson” that she’s taught “all of us” is that clearly, from her perspective, this backlash wasn’t due to her and the AARP’s irresponsibility.  Nope, to her obvious regret, the problem is that she cannot control how we think, nor how we understand what she has to say.   So I’m going to ask again, ever so politely: Melissa, please, please  stick to the singing.