There are multiple horrible fails on the part of @CTVNews reporting this story. My heart goes out to Amanda Gould and her family and hope she does well, but I'm getting a distinctly quacky vibe about the treatment she's choosing for several reasons. But first, WTF, CTV? 1/https://twitter.com/CTVNews/status/1068517286607290368 …
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I finally got the
@CTVNews clip to play, and apparently Gould's lung metastases are not resectable, meaning that it's incredibly unlikely that the risky procedure of isolated perfusion of her lungs will help her. 5/https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/mother-travelling-to-germany-for-costly-cancer-treatment-unavailable-in-canada-1.4199088#_gus&_gucid=&_gup=twitter&_gsc=GpBCjdJ …Show this thread -
Now here's the wrinkle to add to the story. It turns out that Gould has alveolar soft part sarcoma, which is a very, very rare subtype of sarcoma. 6/https://www.curesarcoma.org/patient-resources/sarcoma-subtypes/asps/ …
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It also turns out that alveolar soft part sarcoma is a slow-growing tumor (recurrence eight years after seemingly successful treatment is very uncommon for most sarcomas). It is also poorly responsive to standard chemotherapy. 7/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30347044
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Particularly telling is the part of the interview in which Gould says that the treatment is not offered in Canada because "Canada is evidence-based," which strongly implies that the treatment she is seeking is not. 8/
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Another
@CTVNews fail: Having Gould encourage others with incurable cancer to do the same sort of thing she's doing after "doing their research." 9/Show this thread -
Particularly annoying is the false dichotomy through which
@CTVNews framed the story: Palliative care (give up and go home to die) versus the "brave" choice to go off and try something unproven. 10/Show this thread -
OK, they didn't use those terms explicitly, but that's definitely how the story was framed: Giving up versus fighting the cancer. 11/
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That sort of framing tells patients with advanced cancer that, if they make the perfectly rational and reasonable decision to go with palliative care and try to maximize the quality of their remaining life, they are giving up or being somehow less than brave. 12/
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However, the worst journalistic sin committed in this
@CTVNews report is not to have required, as a condition of having Gould on, that she let them report the name of the clinic where she is going and the names of the doctors who will be treating her. 13/Show this thread -
I understand that stories like this are compelling human interest stories. Only the most hard-hearted among us could fail to be moved by Amanda Gould's plight, but I've seen her plight many times before. However, I've ALSO seen many times how patients like her are victimized. 14/
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By failing to identify the clinic and doctors and by framing Gould's story as a choice between "giving up" and "fighting,"
@CTVNews has done a great disservice to the patients and families facing the horror of metastatic cancer. 15/15Show this thread
End of conversation
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