Cancer is a killer. So is the fear of it By David RopeikApril 10, 2024

https://www.statnews.com/2024/04/10/cancer-can-kill-cancer-fear-delayed-presentation-make-it-worse/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_3PmbG_nGSC5Ik4ZwPIVIzv_pwtQfPvP8d96LOCHzknawE5_CldJ_ArEJnkKODzDVBX0YiJTz23f2xDWM0jCaSUEIOHw&_hsmi=301951790&utm_content=301951790&utm_source=hs_email Cancer is a cruel killer, First Opinion writer David Ropeik reminds us, one whose name people were afraid to speak not too many generations ago and one that still haunts us today. There’s good reason to fear cancer, the second leading cause of death (behind heart disease) in the U.S., but fear of cancer can also be deadly. That fear, or cancer-phobia, as journalist and author Ropeik calls it, keeps people from seeing their doctors or getting screening tests that might improve their chances if they do in fact have cancer. Even after a daunting diagnosis of lung cancer, people in a recent study delayed coming in for treatment by a median of more than three months. Lung cancer is not the exception, and even a world-renowned cancer expert fearing prostate cancer fell into the avoidance camp. “The War on Cancer badly needs another front, to battle the damage that too much fear of this dread disease can generate,” Ropeik concludes. Read more.