Re: Lymphoma Diagnosis for Paul Allen, Microsoft's Least Lucky Co-Founder
James Fenimore
good health!
And the Big C, in the end, is a ghastly way to die.
But the American Cancer Society and other members of the Empire of
Cancer have had just a mere 60 or so years to find a cure! They need
more time -- and especially MORE OF YOUR MONEY!
Some cancer CEOs have salaries exceeding $5 million annually.
But insiders know that TREATMENT, not cure, is where the real money
lies.
Do as the FBI and CIA do -- connect the dots!
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"Microsoft co-founder Allen treated for cancer"
"Owner of NFL’s Seahawks, NBA’s Trailblazers has non-Hodgkin’s
lymphoma"
CNBC's Brian Shactman and Jim Goldman report that Paul Allen is
undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
-----------------------
[updated 11:27 a.m. ET, Tues., Nov . 17, 2009]
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. co-founder and billionaire investor Paul
Allen has been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and is undergoing
chemotherapy.
In a memo sent to employees, Jody Allen, Paul Allen's sister and the
CEO of his investment firm Vulcan Inc., said the 56-year-old received
the diagnosis early this month. According to the memo, Paul Allen has
diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a relatively common form of lymphoma.
Allen battled another form of immune system cancer, Hodgkin's
lymphoma, more than 20 years ago and survived. The CEO wrote that
Allen "is optimistic he can beat this, too."
"Paul is feeling OK and remains upbeat," she added. "He continues to
work and he has no plans to change his role at Vulcan."
Allen founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, a high school friend and
fellow computer enthusiast, in 1975. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of
Microsoft and NBC Universal.)
Gates said in a statement late Monday that Allen remains one of his
closest friends.
"Melinda and I have Paul and his family in our thoughts and prayers,"
he said in the statement, as reported by TechFlash, a tech news Web
site. "I know to him be a strong and resilient individual."
Allen served as the company's executive vice president of research and
new product development until 1983, when he left to focus on his
health.
Allen remained a major shareholder and member of the board, and went
on to invest broadly in technology, real estate, sports and the arts.
He formed Vulcan in the mid-1980s to invest in media and
communications companies, including America Online, DreamWorks
Animation and cable operator Charter Communications Inc. He also co-
founded a Silicon Valley research lab that he then shuttered after
investing more than $100 million.
Owner of Seahawks, Trailblazers
Beyond technology, Allen has used his Microsoft earnings to take his
interests to an extreme. A longtime sports fan, Allen bought
football's Seattle Seahawks and basketball's Portland Trailblazers,
and he is part owner of the Seattle Sounders FC, a major league soccer
team.
Allen has been present at Seahawks games this season, chatting in the
locker room with players. He has a band and a recording studio, and
built the Experience Music Project, a museum about rock music in
Seattle.
Allen has also collected and restored more than 30 vintage airplanes,
started a brain science institute and through Vulcan's real estate arm
redeveloped a large swath of downtown Seattle known as the South Lake
Union neighborhood.
At last count, Allen's net worth totaled about $11.5 billion, making
him the 17th richest person in the world according to Forbes'
September 2009 tally.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33978654/ns/business-us_business/?GT1=43001
Suppurating Tool
By Steven Pearlstein
Friday, November 20, 2009
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did a marvelous
job this week of undermining the move toward evidence-based medicine
with her hasty and cowardly disavowal of a recommendation from her
department's own task force that women under 50 are probably better
off not getting routine annual mammograms.
This is an old issue that has not only sharply divided the medical
community for more than 20 years, but also taps into deep resentments
among women who, over the years, have felt neglected by a male-
dominated medical establishment. And there's no doubt that the
advisory panel's recommendation came at a politically inconvenient
time, just as Congress enters the crucial final phase in a health
reform debate in which opponents have successfully stoked fears of
medical rationing.
But rather than showing the leadership necessary to lead a grown-up
national discussion on how to eliminate unnecessary or wasteful
procedures, Sebelius simply disowned the task force and ran for
political cover. Just as the hysteria over "death panels" killed any
chance that Medicare recipients and their patients might be encouraged
to engage in an intelligent conversation about end-of-life care before
it becomes an issue, the mammogram brouhaha is likely to set back
efforts to dramatically increase research into what really works and
what doesn't, and use the results to revamp the way medical care is
delivered and paid for.
I should acknowledge that I have no idea who should and should not get
routine mammograms. But I know enough about statistics to say that the
issue is not settled just because you know of someone in her 40s whose
breast cancer was detected by a mammogram and cured. As economists and
medical researchers are fond of saying, the plural of anecdote is
data.
To make a valid scientific finding of who should be screened and how
often, you'd have to take into consideration how big the risk is that
women are likely to develop cancer at any particular age; how fast
tumors are likely to grow and how likely they are to be cured once
they are caught; what is the likelihood that a tumor detected by
mammogram might be found some other way; what is the probability that
a suspected tumor turns out not to be pre-cancerous, or that doing a
biopsy on it will actually increase the chance that it could become
dangerous later. You'd also have to weigh the benefits of routine
screening -- deaths avoided and years of life extended -- against the
medical problems caused by complications that arise from biopsies,
along with the mental anguish that goes along with the large number of
false positives that crop up on mammographies of women in their 40s.
All that, of course, is exactly what the task force did, based on
numerous studies done in different countries using different
methodologies. In the end, it found that while some lives might be
saved each year, the benefits of annual screening of women in their
40s were outweighed by the costs -- and that's without even getting
into the financial costs, which run to several billion dollars a year.
As is often the case in such matters, those raising the most fuss were
those with greatest financial interest in mammography (the
radiologists and the makers of mammography machines) and the disease
groups (in this case, the American Cancer Society), which tend to
resist recognizing limits on how much time, money and attention is
devoted to their cause.
"How many mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, daughters and friends
are we willing to lose to breast cancer while the debate goes on about
the limitations of mammography?" Otis Brawley, chief medical officer
of the American Cancer Society, asked in an op-ed article in
Thursday's Washington Post. Dr. Brawley cleverly didn't answer his own
question, but the clear implication of his question was that the only
acceptable number should be zero. And it is that very attitude,
applied across the board to every patient and every disease, which
goes a long way in explaining why ours is the most expensive, and one
of the least effective, health-care systems in the industrialized
world.
The political argument from the White House was that it was necessary
to duck this fight over evidence-based medicine in order to save it.
The better approach would have been to see this as one of those
teachable moments that could be used to reaffirm the entire rationale
for reform. For while debate continues over whether some women may be
getting too many mammograms, there is evidence that there are women
who, because they lack insurance, are getting too few -- and dying
unnecessarily as a result. What health reform is about is correcting
that imbalance while devising new mechanisms for improving health
outcomes and getting better control over costs.
Put in that context, it would have been perfectly reasonable for
Sebelius to have announced that she was delaying implementation of the
task force recommendation for a year in order to give it more time to
seek a broader consensus among researchers, doctors and patients. That
would have made clear that the administration remained committed to a
health-care system driven by the best medical evidence but one that is
also sensitive to broad public opinion. This is a tough-love message
the country, and the Congress, need to hear.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/19/AR2009111904053.html