1.
“Immunotherapy Is Changing Cancer Treatment Forever,” July 15–28
New York’s “Health Issue” featured a series of stories on American medical care, including Christopher Cox’s hopeful report on the future of brain-cancer treatment. “This is awesome,” said Wyatt Taylor. “Genuine good news is too rare.” Journalist Jon Schwarz wrote, “I know from direct family experience that decades of cancer research are now paying off & making it possible to extend & save people’s lives.” Oncologist Stanislav Lazarev called the story “irresponsible,” however, noting that the study it cites “involved only 3 patients. Tumors did shrink quickly after CAR-T infusion but regrew in 2 of the 3 patients within just 3 months (!!!) … It’s plain disingenuous and gives patients false impression and false hope.” Other readers reflected on their loved ones’ battles with cancer. barnesxo commented, “My father was diagnosed with glioblastoma in September 2016 and died in October 2017. He was in a different immunotherapy trial that didn’t work at all. This article made me cry, I’m so happy that there might be an effective treatment in the not too distant future, and other patients and families might have a different experience than the GBM death sentence.”
2.
“Blindsided by Breast Cancer”
Also in the issue, Dyan Neary evaluated the flawed standard of the mammogram in early detection. Several women weighed in on the need for MRI screening. Kaya Oakes, author of The Defiant Middle, wrote, “My breast cancer was missed on four different mammograms, including a 3D one. It’s ludicrous that this problem essentially comes down to mammograms being cheap.” Sara Jensen Carr, author of The Topography of Wellness, added, “A friend of mine passed away yesterday only two months after they found her undetected breast cancer had spread everywhere. Please read this esp if, like me, you have a breast makeup that might require extra MRI’s.” Doctor and researcher Zackary Berger pushed back: “It’s 2024, and journalists still say things like ‘MRI is the most sensitive way to detect breast cancer’ without talking about false positives and overdiagnosis. I imagine the momentum is unstoppable at this point. Further, the story of the woman in this article (who I feel awful for, and suffered treatment delay) is not just about breast cancer screening. She had a mass which a mammogram didn’t detect! She should have had an MRI! That’s a different question.” Still, for some readers, the story underscored a need for patients to advocate for themselves. Commenter birdbybird, who reported breast abnormalities to her doctor while pregnant but was told they were probably due to hormones, wrote, “Here’s what I learned: You need to know your body. You need to look at it. You need to know every mole, lump, colour. Because when you do, you will know when there is something amiss. And you will stand up for yourself, even when people who you think are smarter than you tell you it’s nothing to worry about.”
3.
“A Conspiracy of Silence”
As part of a series on Joe Biden’s age and fitness for office, Olivia Nuzzi reported on efforts to keep the president’s declining mental acuity under wraps. Writing in The Hill, Steve Krakauer, author of Uncovered, called Nuzzi’s story “perhaps the most consequential and jarring piece of ‘start getting real’ journalism since the debate debacle.” Media critic Bill Carter said, “Devastating: blistering indictment of everyone who facilitated this disaster knowing for months (yrs?) how shockingly enfeebled he was. Olivia will be asked why she herself didn’t unload earlier but she’s not responsible for protecting the nation. The enablers were. They failed us.” Many readers did bemoan the story’s timing. Joel Engel wrote, “It’s a good thing you didn’t report, and they didn’t make their concerns public, back in January, before the primaries — when, you know, other candidates could have emerged.” Kent Graham added, “the conspiracy of silence, which she knew about 7 months ago, and just so happened to have finished a week after the disastrous debate. Definitely would’ve still been published if the debate had gone well!” Fox News’s Brit Hume tweeted, “She wrote about it today, more than six months later and after numerous televised episodes showing his senility and frailty. Now she writes of a conspiracy of silence. She ought to know,” while journalist Séamus Malekafzali concluded, “The floodgates of this stuff have just opened all at once. If you had written this assertion even a month ago, you would be written off as a conspiracy theorist.”
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