Alexandra Glorioso, a Florida health reporter for Politico, joined AHCJ for a webcast about what being diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer at age 31 taught her about reporting on health care.
Before we say anything else – after a rough year with chemo, surgery, and radiation – Glorioso is doing well. She’s in remission (and planning her wedding!). Continue reading
Otis Brawley, M.D., and Matthew Ong, of The Cancer Letter, were on the panel “How precision medicine and immunotherapy are redefining the approach to cancer treatment.”
Are precision medicine and immunotherapy overhyped as cancer treatments, or do they hold such tremendous promise that we are only just starting to see the potential?
That was the overarching question for the panel discussion at Health Journalism 2019, “How precision medicine and immunotherapy are redefining cancer treatment.”
“I do worry that precision medicine and immunotherapy are overhyped,” said Otis W. Brawley, M.D., Bloomberg distinguished professor of oncology and epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and John Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Brawley also was the Thursday night speaker at Health Journalism 2019. Continue reading
Occasionally doctors are apt to make claims, especially when money is involved, that are not based in science or fact. That’s why we need health journalists, said Otis Brawley, M.D., today’s Health Journalism 2019 spotlight speaker. We need journalists who understand medicine to be skeptical and not take these claims at face value.
Brawley is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University, where he researches health disparities in cancer, examining which populations are most affected and quantifying how many people are impacted negatively. Continue reading
Photo: Kim Brookes via Flickr
Cancer diagnosis and care are complex. When comorbid conditions, multiple medications, changing physiology and decreasing resilience are involved, they present further challenges for many patients and their cancer specialists. How can they treat a serious disease while minimizing the risk of mortality, side effects, and diminished quality of life?
The good news is that people generally are living longer. The downside is that with increased longevity comes increased odds of developing various forms of cancer. Continue reading
Photo: AJ Cann via Flickr
With about 14 million new infections a year, human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most prevalent sexually-transmitted virus in the United States.
HPV has long been linked to cervical cancer. Certain strains of the virus cause an estimated 12,000 cases of cervical cancer annually among women in the U.S. Now, rising rates of HPV-linked mouth and throat cancers – known as oropharyngeal cancers – are receiving increased attention, as are efforts to get Americans up to age 45 vaccinated to reduce the spread of HPV-related diseases. Continue reading
A dozen journalists have been chosen for the 2018 class of the National Cancer Reporting Fellowships. AHCJ will be presenting the fellowships with expertise from the National Cancer Institute and others. The program is being supported by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust.
The fellows will spend four days on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., to increase their understanding of and ability to report accurately on complex scientific findings, provide insight into the work of cancer researchers and to better localize cancer-related stories. Continue reading