Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (Angelina Jolie sets an example) that was published in Newsband

Angelina Jolie sets an example

Angelina Jolie has done a great job in the matter of raising awareness about breast cancer. She has made the women all over the world aware about genetic testing for the disease, and the options available to women who have tested positive for abnormal Breast Cancer genes. Testing positive for either gene puts women at a 65 per cent risk of developing breast cancer on average. In April, Ms Jolie completed three months of treatment including surgeries to remove both her breasts to ensure that she did not develop the cancer that killed her mother.

The best thing is she went public with her story to help women with similar problem. Her celebrity status will certainly motivate women in similar circumstances to make what is a difficult decision. It would also help those cancer-stricken women for whom breast removal is no longer just a preventive option, but a necessity. The lesson from Ms Jolie’s story is that cancer is preventable.

Spreading awareness about this is extremely difficult in India. Here a large number of cancers are still being caught when they are too advanced, at a stage where medicine can do little or nothing for the patient. A healthy lifestyle can prevent this cancer. Early detection can make it possible to prevent the growth of rogue cell. Preventive annual checks are recommended for women. 

Ms. Jolie should be praised for creating the awarenesss and paving a way for those women, who are doubtful/scared about mastectomy. Her act is truly encouraging to those, for whom mastectomy is warranted because of their disease condition. A photogenic actress like her can certainly influence clinical decisions.

But the thing is the treatments Ms. Jolie has gone through are rather expensive. They have some resonance in America where it's 'normal' for new cancer therapies to cost upwards of $100,000 per annum with 'doubtful' efficacy in terms of extending a person's life, but preventive mastectomy has no relevance whatsoever for the vast majority of people in India — at least upwards of 99% of people in India would be too poor for this stuff.

Do hospitals in India have the full spectrum from genetic medicine expertise to breast reconstruction surgery techniques?  Rich ladies in India who might be candidates for these therefore would need to go abroad. And they already do go abroad for holidays.

Ms. Jolie’s decision to create awareness about breast cancer is similar to Amitabh Bachchan's campaign for polio eradication. The thing is polio eradication requires immunization of each child and is incurable once a child has polio. While cancer does not transmit from one person to another and can be cured if detected at early stages. Polio vaccination is cheap and even free, identifying cancer gene is expensive, even for many US citizens.