Comedian's cancer virtually ran undiagnosed because of a doctor's weight bias

Comedian Jen Curran’s bone marrow cancer almost went undiagnosed thanks to a doctor’s weight stigma-an all too common stigma keep among those in the medical field.

Wanna hear a crazy tale? I’m a new mama& I had protein in my urine during and after pregnancy, which is bad. A physician told me to ” lose weight”& it would go away. Didn’t want me to see me back for months. So I got a second opinion. Turns out I have bone marrow cancer. THREAD: 1/

— Jen Curran (@ jencurran) August 12, 2019

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Curran explained on Twitter that she is a new mom who had high levels of protein in her urine during and after her pregnancy, so she went to see a kidney doctor at the behest of her obstetrician.

At the end of my 2nd trimester they discovered high protein in my urine and I was diagnosed with preeclampsia. 3/

— Jen Curran (@ jencurran) August 12, 2019

Everything remained stable for the rest of the pregnancy. But my OB was remarkably worried about the protein in my urine. It was too high to match up with my other preeclampsia symptoms. 5/

— Jen Curran (@ jencurran) August 12, 2019

The kidney doctor told Curran that she needed to diet and exert to try and lose weight.

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Curran wrote that she was familiar with” the old’ lose weight’ diagnosis” by medical professionals and that something didn’t quite “feel right,” so she smartly tried out a second opinion.

The doctor blinked at my laboratory results.” Can you start dieting and exerting? Try to lose some weight ?” Hmm. Interesting. I was familiar with this move by a medical professional. The old “lose weight” diagnosis. 12/

— Jen Curran (@ jencurran) August 12, 2019

I wanted to believe her but it didn’t feel right to me. Plus she was almost, like, talking past me. Asked me a question about breastfeeding and literally didn’t listen to the answer. Responded as though I said the exact opposite of what I’d said. Not listening. Not present. 14/

— Jen Curran (@ jencurran) August 12, 2019

” The NEW kidney doctor took one look at my laboratory tests and said,’ This is not good. And there’s nothing diet or exercise can do to touch it ,” Curran wrote.” I was surprised BUT ALSO NOT .”

Curran went through both a kidney and bone marrow biopsy to find out that she actually had bone marrow cancer.

” And if I hadn’t gotten a second opinion ?” she wrote.” Duh. I’ll already be weeks into chemo by the time the followup with that first kidney doctor rolls around. And who knows how much longer it would have taken her to diagnose me ?”

For the sake of getting to the point, you’ll simply have to trust me that a kidney biopsy is not fun. Do not recommend. Would not endorse. Unsubscribe. 25/

— Jen Curran (@ jencurran) August 12, 2019

Shocking. Gut wrenching. I have a 5 month old baby. I’m not even 40 years old. I’m not even caught up on Big Little Lies. 30/

— Jen Curran (@ jencurran) August 12, 2019

So here we are and here we go. I’m 38 and I have a new newborn and I have bone marrow cancer. Definitely not what I expected. Definitely don’t wanna have to deal with this. But I’m going to beat it. 33/

— Jen Curran (@ jencurran) August 12, 2019

Curran isn’t the first person to have an illness, disability, or disease dismissed due to weight. And, according to a study, more than 50% of physicians” viewed obese patients as awkward, unattractive, ugly, and noncompliant .”

Many others began sharing their own tales in response to Curran’s-some with more tragic outcomes.

” So glad you got a 2nd sentiment. A woman I knew went to her doctor for shortness of breath. Dr took one look at her and told her to lose weight.” Of course you can’t breath! Look at you! Lose weight and you’ll is a good one “. Next day, she was dead from a blood clot in her lungs ,” one wrote.

“weight” and “menapause” apparently are the causes of every ailment for women … no matter how much we track symptoms, or research& provide it to the doctors, they skip over it. I’m so sorry you are going through this& expressed appreciation for for sharing it.

— SoodyQ (@ SoodyQ) August 13, 2019

My mother had this cancer. She was symptomatic but was told to see a shrink. One of her huge symptoms was unexplained weight loss. If she had been thin initiated with, she would’ve gotten a diagnosis. Instead, what she got was congratulations for losing weight without trying.

— Becca
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A year into his cancer treatment, Stephen heard about the benefits of medical marijuana and CBD oil, but it has proven difficult to get

I was lying face down when I first heard about Stephen Schulman. I’d been feeling sorry for myself, complaining of an throb wrist and back- the vestiges of an age-inappropriate roller-skating accident – while my massage therapist Elisa worked to soothe my pain.

Eventually, our conversation turned to her friend Stephen. At only 41, merely months after marrying the love of his life, Stephen had gone to the doctor complaining of stomach aches and the inability to keep anything down. He re-emerged with a diagnosis: stage-3 pancreatic cancer, inoperable due to a very large tumor wrapping itself around a major artery in his abdomen.

In essence, a death sentence.

Elisa had been buying Stephen sublingual CBD oil– $89 for one ounce- because it proved to be the only thing effectively alleviating the tingling and numbness that had recently consumed his fingers and toes. He and his spouse Wade’s savings had been bled dry by their $2,400 -a-month insurance premium plus general expenses. Stephen is unable to work since his life has become a blur of excruciating pain, therapies, hope, dread and heavy doses of opioids like fentanyl and oxycodone.

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The modern drug-regulation system traces back to a once-popular morning-sickness pill whose linkage to newborns born with flipper-like legs in the 1960 s resulted the U.S. to tighten oversight for approving medications.

That builds it all the more amazing that Celgene Corp. has built itself into a biotech powerhouse, rebranding the medication thalidomide employing a somewhat different name: Thalomid. Lately unsealed documents in a lawsuit by a company saleswoman-turned-whistleblower allege that its success is due to an aggressive campaign to promote physicians to prescribe it and successor medications to treat maladies beyond those the FDA authorized.

After some studies indicated thalidomide could treat blood cancer but long before it was authorized for it, Celgene generated a thriving market by hiring physicians to tout employs beyond what the product was approved for and ghostwriters to promote the medication in medical periodicals, according to the suit. Though physicians have broad latitude in prescribing medications, even for uses that arent approved, drugmakers cant push off-label employs. Producers including Pfizer Inc. and Johnson& Johnson have paid billions of dollars to resolve such claims.

Even after the Food and Drug Administration approved Thalomid for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, in the mid-2 000 s, Celgene continued to promote it for other forms of cancer, including cervix, thyroid and brain, whistleblower Beverly Brown alleges in the suit, are presented in 2010.

Celgene vigorously disputes the allegations.

Although the U.S. Justice Department declined to join Browns suit, which claims Celgene victimized government insurance programs by marketing its medications for off-label employs, a California judge cleared her suit for trial.

These accusations, which date as far back as 15 years, are baseless, Celgene spokesman Brian Gill said in a statement. Celgene is committed to patient security, and its products have improved and extended the lives of many thousands of cancer patients.

First sold as a sedative in West Germany in the 1950 s, thalidomide became an over-the-counter sensation in Europe. The FDA repudiated the treatment as a morning-sickness pill in 1960, over very concerned about separate side effect. In the wake of the controversy over birth defect, U.S. rules on reviewing medications were tightened.

Revolutionary

In the 1990 s, Celgene was a small biotech firm that had never brought a drug to market. A study indicated thalidomide, then being used to treat leprosy overseas, might help against HIV-related weight loss. Researchers found the compound tied to birth defect might also opposed blood cancers such as multiple myeloma. Federal regulators knew many oncologists regarded Thalomid and Revlimid, its chief successor, as revolutionary, Celgene said, according to the court documents.

It wasnt until 1998 that the FDA approved Thalomid for a sort of leprosy. The regulator, however, insisted on measures to ensure pregnant women wouldnt take it. In 2005, Revlimid was approved for one type of blood cancer and the next year, both medications were approved for multiple myeloma.

There arent a lot of lepers in the United States, but there are a lot of people who wanted to use it for other uses, said Robert DAmato, a surgery director at Boston Childrens Hospital, whose research in the 1990 s pointed to thalidomides potential.

Last year, Thalomid and its successors, Revlimid and Pomalyst, accounted for $6.97 billion, or more than 75 percentage, of Celgenes revenue. The company has pledged to double total sales to more than $21 billion by 2020. The stock has soared 310 percentage, more than fourfold, in the past five years, outperforming the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index.

Brown, 59, joined Celgene in 2001 as the company was rolling out a campaign to promote Thalomid to treat other cancers, her suit says. Around that time, she said Celgene hired almost 100 salespeople and trained them to peddle the medication to cancer physicians, an allegation the company called baseless. Brown left after a decade. She declined to comment beyond the suit.

Off-Label Prescriptions

Some analyzes saw no overall survival benefits for cancer patients on thalidomide. But in a study published this year looking at multiple trials, Revlimid helped patients with multiple myeloma live about 2.5 years longer after a stem cell transplant than those on placebo.

From the beginning, off-label prescriptions drove Thalomids marketings. In the first 12 months after its U.S. debut for leprosy, about 70 percent of the prescriptions were for oncology patients, Celgene said in an annual filing. In 2000, six years before Thalomid was approved as a cancer treatment, oncological instances accounted for 92 percent of prescriptions, according to the filing. In 2004, then-CFO Robert Hugin told investors the medication was the companys financial engine.

Executives were aware then of concerns the medication might increase the risk of blood clots in cancer patients, Brown alleges in court filings. Drugmakers are required to alert regulators of possible side effect. The former sales rep says that Celgene failed to do so, and points to an October 2000 e-mail from Todd Clark, a drug-safety official at the company. He told an employee who had sent messages about instances that connected Thalomid to clots and hadnt been reported to the FDA that putting such statements in writing in an internal Celgene document is potentially a glaring red flag to the FDA, according to the filings.

Non-Erasable Message

Clark in turn got his own warning in a February 2001 e-mail from Celgenes chief medical officer, Jerry Zeldis, saying, this is a non-erasable message that can be audited by the FDA. A few months later, Zeldis said in another e-mail are presented in court that Celgene had heard of seven deaths due to clots by cancer patients taking Thalomid off label. In a deposition, he said the reports were turned over to the FDA. The regulator declined to comment on Celgenes reporting.

Zeldis declined to comment on the e-mails, and Clark couldnt be reached. Celgene disputed Browns interpretation, saying in court documents that the messages reminded employees to keep the FDA informed of possible risks. Brown also said in a deposition that Celgene had instructed salespeople to report any issues.

Celgene took other steps to rehabilitate thalidomide in the medical community, paying physicians who prescribed the medications off label to tout them to colleagues through a speakers program, Brown said in court filings. Celgene paid 159 physicians $2.1 million in 2015 for services such as to talk about Revlimid, Thalomid and Pomalyst, according to government records.

Promotional Speaker

Among the recipients was William Bensinger, a Seattle oncologist, who received $260,000 over seven years from Celgene as a promotional speaker, according to court documents. While he was getting as much as $4,000 per talk, Bensinger also served as head of a national oncologist committee that reviews the effectiveness of cancer medications for physicians and federal insurance programs, court records show. He declined to comment on whether that constituted a conflict of interest.

Its left to the audience to decide whether or not to use the medication, Bensinger said in a deposition, denying he pressured others to prescribe Celgene products.

Working with drugmakers can be tricky, according to David Steensma, an oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Celgene paid him $26,262 to assist way patients with certain blood cancers, according to government records. Steensma said he wasnt part of the speakers program.

It is a relationship you need to be very careful with, because their motivatings and their goals are not the same as yours, Steensma said. I have to sleep well at night.

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Poop is a very serious business. In fact, it could even save your life.

Your bowel movementssay a lot about your health and can act as an early warning sign of a serious health problem. This is especially true for bowel cancer. Bowel cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, is the third most common cancer in the world, with 1.4 million new cases in 2012. With an ever-aging population, this figure is forecasted to continue rising.

A change in bowel movements that persists for more than three weeks can often provide an early sign of colorectal cancer. Othersymptoms may include blood in the stool, unexplained weight loss, extreme tiredness, abdominal ache and even a lump in the stomach. If any of that sounds familiar, then its always best to consult a doctor.

Picking up on the early signs of the disease were critical, as early diagnosis and therapy can skyrocket a patient’s chanceof survival. Its estimated that 90 percentof people who develop bowel cancer can be cured if its catch atstage one.

Unfortunately, our time on the toilet is often shrouded in shyness and embarrassment.

Ash Guptaof Ramsay Health Care UKtoldMailOnlinethat”The most difficult thing I have to grapple with as a bowel cancer consultant is the needlessness of many of these deaths.”

To curb this problem, Gupta has created an infographic to raiseawarenessand spread somesimple, yet life-saving, information.

Image credit: Ramsay Health Care UK

Tag: cancer