I give Ms. Jolie credit for sharing her story publicly. It's a reminder that advances in genetics and medicine are going to give us opportunities to learn more than ever, quantify risks very precisely, and force many of us to make very difficult decisions someday.
Angelina Jolie Double Mastectomy
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Angelina Jolie says that she has had a preventive double mastectomy after learning she carried a gene that made it extremely likely she would get breast cancer.
The Oscar-winning actress and partner to Brad Pitt made the announcement in the form of an op-ed she authored for Tuesday's New York Times (http://nyti.ms/17o4A0f ) under the headline, "My Medical Choice." She writes that between early February and late April she completed three months of surgical procedures to remove both breasts.
Jolie, 37, writes that she made the choice with thoughts of her six children after watching her own mother, actress Marcheline Bertrand, die too young from breast cancer.
"My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56," Jolie writes. "She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was."
She writes that, "They have asked if the same could happen to me."
Jolie said that after genetic testing she learned she carries the "faulty" BRCA1 gene and had an 87 percent chance of getting the disease herself.
She said she has kept the process private so far, but wrote about it with hopes of helping other women.
Keep reading: Angelina Jolie Double Mastectomy – Business Insider.
Picture credit: Georges Biard
p.s. Here's a surprisingly nasty, sarcastic article on the subject. The author, Ruth Fowler, should try make her point in a less offensive way, if she really wants to be heard… Angelina Jolie Under the Knife:
In begins: "Angelina Jolie, scion of Hollywood beauty, has gone under the knife for medical, rather than cosmetic reasons and guess what – it’s news! Angelina’s double-mastectomy, undertaken because she carries the BRCA1 gene which doctors have estimated gave her an 87% chance of having breast cancer, and a 57% chance of having ovarian cancer, is pretty radical news…"
