Posts Tagged: cancer
Opinion
OPINION: Six years ago, I joined terminally ill Californians to pass a law that would provide them the option to die gently when they can no longer tolerate their suffering. This is personal to me: I watched my mother’s lengthy suffering when she died from cancer. People often thank me and share their stories why the End of Life Option Act is important to them.
Opinion
OPINION: In the many years we have been treating patients, the hardest conversations to get through were always revealing a person’s cancer diagnosis to them for the first time. But like everything else in our world today—that has changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Opinion
OPINION: My insurance company has entirely ignored my doctors’ medical expertise and flatly refused to pay for the physician-prescribed treatment. I’ve learned that my plight is not unique, that there is a systematic failure to hold insurers accountable for unfair delays and inappropriate denials of recommended cancer care. California’s insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, can fix this.
News
California is deciding whether to add a popular herbicide’s ingredient to the list of officially recognized cancer-causing compounds — a move that has run into a legal road block. At issue is glyphosate, a prime ingredient in the Monsanto Company’s herbicide Roundup.
Opinion
OPINION: It’s pretty rare nowadays to meet someone whose life hasn’t been affected by some variety of cancer. Whether you’ve been diagnosed yourself or know someone who has, the impacts can be devastating.
News
The California State Library is setting up a special collection in honor of Gregory Schmidt, the long-time ranking Senate staffer who died of cancer at the age of 69. State Librarian Greg Lucas said in an email that the Greg Schmidt Collection on Political Leadership will include “any number of books, articles, movies, podcasts, lectures and case studies besides those in Greg’s personal library that inform today’s political leaders.”
Opinion
OPINION: Tobacco companies have spent more than $70 million fighting Proposition 56, a life-saving initiative that will protect kids from deadly addiction, improve access to health care for Californians and fight cancer and other tobacco-related diseases. As a volunteer physician for the American Lung Association in California, I strongly support Prop 56.
News
A new stem cell company that targets cancer by unleashing an “eat me” trigger has emerged from a $30 million investment by the state of California. Creation of the Palo Alto firm, which is called Forty Seven, Inc., was announced Feb. 24 by its backers and its key researcher, Irv Weissman, director of Stanford University’s stem cell program.
News
Recent research is focusing new attention on an asbestos-like mineral, blamed for staggering rates of a deadly cancer in Turkey, that also is found in the rocks and soil of 13 Western states, including California. The U.S. Geological Survey has identified 95 sites where the mineral, erionite, exists. Nine of the identified locations are in California.
News
Gov. Jerry Brown, in one of the most emotional moments of his long political career, signed into law a bill allowing people near death to end their lives with lethal drugs supplied by a physician. “The crux of the matter is whether the state of California should continue to make it a crime for a dying person to end his life, no matter how great his pain or suffering,” Brown wrote in his official signing message.
An elderly ill patient receives care from a nurse. (Photo: Ocskay Mark, via Shutterstock)
