{"id":743,"date":"2009-11-10T15:15:51","date_gmt":"2009-11-10T15:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/prayers-to-kareem-abdul-jabbar-a-question-about-drug-sponsorship.html"},"modified":"2009-11-10T15:15:51","modified_gmt":"2009-11-10T15:15:51","slug":"prayers-to-kareem-abdul-jabbar-a-question-about-drug-sponsorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/prayers-to-kareem-abdul-jabbar-a-question-about-drug-sponsorship.html","title":{"rendered":"Prayers to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & an Ethical Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kareem<\/span>Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the “Big Guy” many regard as the best basketball player in history, announced today that he has cancer. A very rare variety of blood cancer called chronic myeloid leukemia. But apparently it’s treatable–he was diagnosed last December– and he is expected to make a full recovery. Three-point swish for that! We send our thoughts and prayers to him and his family.<\/p>\n

Now, part two, this is a delicate topic to bring up with the news so fresh and the tragedy so real, but as a blood cancer survivor myself, this excerpt from an AP article<\/a> caught my eye:<\/p>\n

Abdul-Jabbar is taking an oral medication for the disease. He is a paid spokesman for the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, which makes a drug that treats the illness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Citing the way Los Angeles Lakers teammate Magic Johnson brought awareness to HIV, Abdul-Jabbar said he wants to do the same for his form of blood cancer, which can be fatal if left untreated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

And from the same article: <\/p>\n

“I’ve never been a person to share my private life. But I can help save lives,” he said at a midtown Manhattan conference room. “It’s incumbent on someone like me to talk about this.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, if I’m putting this together: He was diagnosed last year. He’s going public with this information now. He’s a paid sponsor for makers of the drug he’s taking for the disease. <\/p>\n

Am I a horrible cynic to think that there’s a link? And that this is actually nothing like Magic Johnson who came out about his illness at a time when it was a huge stigma and thought to affect mainly gay men and straight women? And when Magic came out I’m pretty sure he wasn’t simultaneously raising awareness while being paid for it.<\/p>\n

Those are all the facts I have, but something about it feels off to me. Even though, in fact I am someone who might directly benefit from new awareness and research dollars potentially going for the research of blood cancer. <\/p>\n

As you well know, pharma companies are being questioned for showering doctors with vacations and gifts, and renowned medical journal companies like Elsevier<\/a> are being discredited because they published articles–even entire new journals–by people secretly on drug companies’ payrolls. Which brings up questions like: Should drug companies be allowed to advertise to the general public? Is wooing doctors to prescribe their drug harming patients who may not need that–or any–drug? Etc. <\/p>\n

Bottom line: My heart is with Kareem for a full recovery, I applaud him for talking about this. And, also, I’d like more information the timing of his announcement and his arrangement with the company. It’s a tough one for journalists, but it’s an essential one for patients of all kinds.<\/p>\n

[Image via: http:\/\/sports.espn.go.com\/nba\/news\/story?id=4640518<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the “Big Guy” many regard as the best basketball player in history, announced today that he has cancer. A very rare variety of blood cancer called chronic myeloid leukemia. But apparently it’s treatable–he was diagnosed last December– and he is expected to make a full recovery. Three-point swish for that! We send our thoughts and prayers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[782,176,783,784,785,786],"class_list":["post-743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-valerie-reiss","category-current-events","tag-blood-cancer","tag-cancer","tag-drug-companies","tag-kareem-abdul-jabbar","tag-leukemia","tag-pharmaceuticals"],"yoast_head":"\nPrayers to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & an Ethical Question - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/11\/prayers-to-kareem-abdul-jabbar-a-question-about-drug-sponsorship.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Prayers to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & an Ethical Question - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the “Big Guy” many regard as the best basketball player in history, announced today that he has cancer. 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She was a founding editor at Breathe magazine, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Women's Health, Natural Health, Yoga Journal, Lime.com, Vegetarian Times, and ABCNEWS.com. A native New Yorker, Valerie holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Beloit College in Creative Writing with a minor in Women's Studies. She also lived in Maui for a while where she drank green papaya juice and taught some creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/vreiss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}