CBC’s The Current called me early this morning, wondering what I thought about Angelina Jolie‘s prophylactic double mastectomy and the Op-Ed she wrote in today’s New York Times. Shocked by the news, I read Jolie’s Op-Ed several times. Clearly, Jolie’s reasons for undergoing this surgery are personal: “My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56… I carry a faulty gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases my risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer…My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent…my children don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.” I assume that’s why Angelina Jolie kept this personal event private. But now she is going public. Why? “Because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.” Jolie wonders how thousands of low-income and middle-income American women will have $3,000 to pay for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 tests? This is a good question. Here’s another: To what lengths will Angelina Jolie — former Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations and one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses — advocate on behalf of women who may also carry BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, but don’t have the financial means to purchase the test? How long until women do all their banking at The Angelina Jolie Credit Union?
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