Myriad Genetics may have lost its singular hold on the market for BRCA1 and BRCA2 testing in May 2013 when the Supreme Court ruled against the patenting of genes, but few outside the science and medical communities are aware that Myriad continues to possess a repository of patient data from BRCA testing that it does…
Angelina Jolie has no regrets. The 38-year-old actress opened up for the first time about her decision to undergo a preventative mastectomy in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I’m great! I’m very happy I made the decision. I was very fortunate to have great doctors and very, very fortunate to have a good recovery and…
Ladies, there is a cure for breast cancer! No more pink Octobers, Angelina Jolie op-eds on mastectomies and suffering the world over. Last Tuesday evening, February 4, in a roomful of learned men, the Satmar Rov of Williamsburg, Mendele Teitelbaum, announced that Sephora eye shadow in all colors and MAC lipsticks, the regular and long-lasting…
KFAR SABA, Israel (JTA) – Michelle Kolath-Arbel squeezes a nipple, rolling it in her fingers with a look of mild disgust. This model, which Kolath-Arbel ordered from China two years ago for $50, is thick and crude and took three months to arrive in the mail. “It was hard, rubbery,” she said. “It looked like…
The recent New York Times story about breast cancer in Israel focused, in part, on the low percentage of women who undergo the surgery after being told they’ve tested positive for BRCA1 or 2, which indicate a much greater risk for breast cancer. The story suggests that this is in part because doctors in Israel…
What was Jewish about Angelina Jolie’s decision to have her breasts surgically removed? Everything. The Hollywood superstar stunned million of fans with the stark and eloquent announcement that she had chosen to proactively undergo the procedure to reduce her risk of contracting breast cancer. Jolie, whose mother died from breast cancer, explained that she took…
After actress Angelina Jolie announced her decision to have a double mastectomy back in May, it didn’t take long for synagogues and Shabbat tables in the Jewish community to buzz with a new conversation. Her choice to have her breasts surgically removed touched a raw nerve within the community: while one in every 800 individuals…
When Marcia Watson-Levy was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 at age 58, she suspected that heredity played a role: Her sister Rhoda had died of breast cancer 12 years before, at 52. Yet Watson-Levy, who then lived in San Francisco, said that none of her physicians — her primary doctor, her surgeon or her…
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