Some time ago I was in my local post office and the clerk, knowing that I was a physician, asked me why her brother couldn't get a new liver to treat his pancreatic cancer -- she resented the fact that only a rich and famous guy like Steve Jobs was able to get this life-saving treatment. This was a classic "teachable moment" when I had the opportunity to explain to her that, despite what she had been hearing and seeing in countless stories in the mainstream media since 2004, Mr. Jobs had a different type of tumor and that the more common would never be treated by liver transplantation.
We began covering almost two years ago, about a month or so after we launched Celebrity Diagnosis. Our mission was and is to increase health literacy and medical knowledge among consumers by using "common diseases affecting uncommon people" as a regular series of Teachable Moments in Medicine.
Our was triggered by the news that Mr. Jobs is taking a medical leave of absence from his job at CEO of Apple. Other media outlets continued to repeat the false and misleading "fact" that Jobs was a survivor of pancreatic cancer. The day after this announcement, Apple's stock declined by $15 billion.
CEOs' medical conditions are of material value to their companies but, according to CNN's Reliable Sources program, SEC rules on disclosure and the investing public's right to know are "fuzzy." This situation leaves it to journalists to make judgment calls about reporting on such matters.
Steve Jobs most likely had an , a neoplasm that is considerably more rare than pancreatic adenocarcinoma, is usually detected earlier, and has a better prognosis and different treatment options, including . Mr. Jobs' liver transplant was performed about 17 months ago at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis because he was the sickest patient on the waiting list and had the highest (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease). Mr. Jobs subsequently urged everyone to .
In concluding, we'd like to remind our readers that we use no information that has not already been made public by other reliable media sources. We have no, nor do we seek any, access to privileged or confidential medical information governed by HIPAA laws and regulations. Our “teachable moments” do not in any way depend on contact with the public figures whose conditions we write about, or their personal physicians. Our stories are aimed at answering the general question: If a person has this condition, what exactly is it and what does it mean, for them, their families and friends, and for society?
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