Angelina Jolie recently announced she has undergone bilateral prophylactic mastectomies because she has the BRCA mutation which increases her risks for breast cancer by over 80% and almost the same for ovarian carcinoma, from which her mother died in her 50's.
As a rule, the Phantom has disparaged the star marketing of disease, but Ms. Jolie actually cannot be accused of a publicity stunt--on the contrary, this announcement will, if anything, reduce her marketability.
One may be cynical about Ms. Jolie's forays into the third world, her adoption of underprivileged children, but it is hard to see anything other than a genuine attempt to save lives in her most recent announcement.
For anyone who has ever seen their mother die of either breast or ovarian carcinoma, the experience is something you would never wish on anyone else. If you could do anything to reduce those numbers, the right thing to do is to do it.
The Phantom cautions that discussion of topics like breast carcinoma and BRCA mutations is almost always never well done when it occurs in the pages of the National Enquirer, People or even The Washington Post.
But in this, as in other arenas, Ms. Jolie has proven to be the exception.
No comments:
Post a Comment