London (and much of the U.S.) is currently obsessed with Jade Goody, who is dying of stage 4 cervical cancer at the age of 27 in a very public way: On television. One thing I find amazing is that, in the mountain of media coverage on this (including articles in the New York Times, the Guardian, BBC, etc), I’m not seeing reporters mentioning one very important fact:  According to one story (no longer online, but quoted in this interesting post at TBTAM), Goody had multiple abnormal pap smears in her teens.  She went in for a few treatments to have the abnormal cells removed, then ignored later abnormal pap results and a letter instructing her to come back for additional treatment.  One article essentially accuses her doctors of malpractice for not recognizing her symptoms (abdominal pain, etc) as cervical cancer, but fails to mention that she likely didn’t tell those doctors about her [...]

Original post by Rebecca Skloot none@example.com