Controversial former attorney general Pam Bondi recovering from thyroid cancer, Fox News reports

Pam Bondi, Donald J. Trump's former attorney general, is recovering from thyroid cancer, Fox News Digital reports.

According to a recent story by Michael Sinkewicz, Bondi, 60, underwent treatment after leaving the Justice Department in early April. The Fox New website cited a source telling Axios and Katie Miller, ex-White House staffer and podcast host who is married to White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, reposted the report.

Pam Bondi

"Pam has been quietly kicking cancer's ass the last few weeks," she's quoted as having writtten.  

The Fox story did not list any prognosis.

It does say that Axios disclosed Bondi's health update while reported that she's been appointed by Trump to an advisory committee "focused on artificial intelligence policy."

More information on various cancers can be found in Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer, aVitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten aimed at male caregivers. My other books are MysteryDates — How to keep the sizzle in your relationship; The Roving I, a compilation of 70 of my newspaper columns; and Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy intended for 6- to 10-year-olds that I co-authored with my then 8-year-old granddaughter. Check out my website at https://woodyweingarten.com for details.

Washington Post writer explains why our general fear of cancer is outdated — and is harmful

Has cancer-phobia become an outdated — and harmful — concept?

In an opinion piece by David Ropeik in editions of The Washington Post earlier this week, the writer maintains that "our cancer phobia [is] a fear that in some ways no longer matches the facts."

David Ropeik

His column explains that we now know "that tens of thousands of common breast, prostate, and thyroid cancers that are detected early never go on to do any harm." 

Still, he writes, people "'over-diagnosed' with these types of cancer are understandably frightened and usually choose more aggressive treatment than their clinical conditions require. Some 'fear-ectomies' cause great harm, leading to side effects that range from moderate to severe and include death itself."

The columnist goes on to say that "we spend an estimate $5.2 billion a year on…clinically unnecessary treatment, 3 percent of the total spent on all cancer care annually."

Ropeik, author of Curing Cancer-phobia: How Risk, Fear, and Worry Mislead Us, maintains that "a diagnosis of cancer is still thought to be a death sentence [despite the fact that] mortality in the United States is down 33 percent in the past three decades [and as] many as two-thirds of all cancers can now be treated as chronic conditions or cured outright."

There apparently are more than 200 types of cancer, which all told kill roughly 600,000 people each year.

Ropeik, a former environmental journalist and retired instructor in the environmental management program at Harvard University's School of Continuing Education, writes that we collectively "have feared cancer more than any other disease since it became the No. 2 cause of death in the United States in the 1920s (after heart disease)."

The writer's opinion piece asserts that although "a majority of people believe that most cancer is caused by environmental carcinogens…we now know that cancer is principally a natural disease of aging, which allows DNA mutations that cause uncontrolled cell growth to accumulate." 

Despite that information, he says, "governments spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year to reduce the risk from environmental carcinogens [and] we spend billions on organic foods, vitamins, and supplements, as well as many other products that promise to reduce our risk of cancer but don't." 

Ropeik concludes that even though "we cannot absolutely cure cancer, nor will we ever entirely erase our cancer-phobia…we need to understand and battle both the disease and our fear, because both are doing terrible harm."

More information about fear of diseases can be found in Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer, a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

'Precision medicine' altering treatment focus

FDA clears pricey oncology therapy drug for multiple cancers with a shared mutation

The federal Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug, Vitrakvi, for a wide range of cancers based on a shared mutation.

According to a recent Washington Post story by Laurie Mcginley that was reprinted in newspapers across the country, the decision shifts treatment focus away from tumor location, apparently "an advance for the sometimes controversial field of 'precision medicine.'"

The FDA action on Vitrakvi (aka larotrectinib) marks the second treatment to receive the agency's "clearance based on a common biomarker found in an array of cancers."

The approval was given simultaneously for adults and children, contrary to the more typical FDA action regarding oncology drugs whereby kids are not considered until much later than adults.

Vitrakvi is intended, Mcginley's story says, "for patients with advanced solid tumors containing what's called an NTRK gene fusion, a hybrid of two genes that can promote uncontrolled cell growth. Cancers of the thyroid, lung and head and neck, among others, can be caused by the defect."

Dr. Scott Gottlieb

According to a story in the online magazine Healio, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a FDA commissioner, notes that approval of the new site-agnostic oncology therapy "marks another step in an important shift toward treating cancers based on their tumor genetics rather than their site of origin in the body."

The breakthrough drug (that was tested in three clinical trials), the Washington Post piece adds, "is for patients whose cancer has spread or who would experience severe complications by undergoing surgery and have no satisfactory alternatives."

Precision medicine has spawned both enthusiasm and skepticism, partially because both the drugs and the tests can be quite expensive.

The drug's manufacturer, Loxo Oncology, Inc., and its partner, Bayer, announced that "the wholesale acquisition cost will be $32,800 for a 30-day supply of capsules for adults. The cost for the liquid formulation for children…will start at $11,000 per month."

Patient affordability "is one of the big barriers to precision medicine right now," McKinley quotes Carolyn Presley, a geriatric oncologist at Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, as saying. "Show me the money — how are you going to pay for it?"

Elizabeth Jaffee, Johns Hopkins oncologist, nevertheless predicted that precision medicine "is going to be the way to treat cancer in the future," the Washington Post story reports.

More information on research into cancer can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

New insights, treatments, tests in disease 'war'

Medical community is starting to believe less is more when it comes to cancer treatments 

More and more doctors and patients apparently are using less aggressive weapons to fight cancer these days.

Dr. Justin Bekelman

A story by Laurie McKinley in yesterday's Washington Post quotes Dr. Justin Bekelman, a radiation oncologist at the University of Pennsylvania, about the medical community's focus on the "war on cancer."

Historically, he says, that phrase "implied that more is better and decimation is desired."

McKinley's story contends, however, that the idea is "falling out of favor," not only because it "subtly blames patients" who die "but also because it doesn't capture a world of new biological insights, improved treatments and molecular tests that are transforming how cancer is treated."

According to Bekelman, "Knowing when not to treat" can be "great medicine" — because, the story charges, oncologists equipped with new tools and evidence can cut back on toxic and costly approaches likely do more harm than good.

Cancer, nevertheless, is not monolithic, the story indicates.

Rather, some cancers "need to be bludgeoned, but others can be treated with more tailored therapies or simply watched."

Although the latest mindset of "doing less in the face of danger" can be "emotionally difficult" for both patients and physicians, the article notes, proof that less is more has been frequently popping up lately, including a landmark clinical trial published in June that found more than "two-thirds of women with early-stage breast cancer can safely avoid chemotherapy." 

Not to mention the fact, according to the piece, that "men with early-stage, low-risk prostate cancer are rapidly embracing 'active surveillance' over surgery — and avoiding possible complications such as incontinence and sexual dysfunction," and that throat cancer caused by human papilloma virus, because it varies from other types of the disease, allows a cutback "in a brutal treatment regimen and [reduces] the risk of potentially devastating disfigurement."

The Post story also mentions the emergence of immunotherapy, usually less toxic than chemo, "as a first-line treatment for many patients," and cites a recent study showing that "people with advanced kidney cancer can skip surgery to have their kidneys removed and instead go right to drug treatment."

De-escalation isn't happening universally, however. 

McKinley contends that the "most common form of thyroid cancer, which poses little risk, is often still treated with unnecessary surgery, experts say. And some malignancies, such as pancreatic cancer, are so lethal that doctors are racing to find ways to ramp up treatment."

Details on trends and clinical trials in treatment can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.