Did corporate PR, death paranoia prompt Jolie's mastectomy?

A debate is raging over the news Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy last week.

A section of experts, attributing Jolie’s decision to Americans’ heightened fear of death, claims that Jolie’s decision was entirely a corporate PR exercise for Myriad Genetics, the company that is in the middle of a court battle to get patent for the human gene BRAC1.

However, another section holds the diagonally opposite view. It thinks Jolie’s attempt was to create awareness about the importance of prevention of the emperor of maladies.

Two articles in the ET Magazine on Sunday presented both sides of the argument.

[caption id=“attachment_797295” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Jolie’s is a bold move that is demolishing the widely accepted myths of feminine beauty.AP[/caption]

Chitra Subramaniam Duella, herself a cancer survivor, thinks that “walking away is no answer” to a dangerous situation. According to her, the scrutiny that Jolie is facing in India is linked to the nonchalant attitude we have towards death.

“What do we do when we see women lying in pools of blood on the roads in Delhi - we walk away,” she says.

If a preventive measure like mastectomy is not affordable for many Indians, it is because our politicians look at “health as a cost and not as an investment”, she says.

Moreover, Jolie’s is a bold move that is demolishing the widely accepted myths of feminine beauty.

Opposing this view is Samanwaya Rautray, who says “mutilation is no option to becoming cancer-free”. Had it been one, Jolie will also have to undergo a hysterectomy and oophorectomy (removal of uterus and ovaries, respectively) too so that chances of getting ovarian cancer is reduced.

According to Ashish Goel, surgical oncologist, Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute, Delhi, there are other steps that can be used for prevention. Surgery is an option for persons with familial history, but does not render her 100 percent risk-free, he says. (Read the articles here and here .)

An article in naturalnews.com said the whole affair was aimed at “protecting trillions in profits through the deployment of carefully-crafted public relations campaigns designed to manipulate the public opinion of women”.

The article citing marketwatch.com said that shares of Myriad Genetics hit a 52-week high after Jolie’s article was published in the New York Times.

Jolie’s article was based on false statistics and “drove fear into the hearts of anyone with breasts”. Women made beeline to make the BRCA1 tests, which are patented by Myriad Genetics, thus boosting the profitability of the company.

The move was also aimed at creating a favourable public opinion just before the Supreme Court delivers its judgment on patentability of human gene. If the court favours such a step, the BRCA1 testing itself will be a multi-billion-dollar market, the article said.

The similarity of the language of Jolies’ NYT article and that of another one published in the People magazine is striking and proves beyond doubt that the announcement was “a well-planned corporate PR campaign”, naturalnews.com said.

Read the article here .