A Message From President Obama
"My mother died of ovarian cancer at the age of 53, and in those last painful months she was more worried about paying medical bills than getting well. For millions of Americans, my mother's story is all too familiar. That is why we need health-care reform that guarantees affordable coverage for every American who wants it and prevents insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most. Earlier this year, I announced an additional $6 billion investment for cancer research as part of a long-term strategy to combat the disease, and the recovery package includes a two-year infusion of $10 billion for the National Institutes of Health, which funds cancer research. We know this fight will not be easy, but we have gone far too long without necessary reforms of our health-care system.
Now is the time to commit ourselves to waging a war against cancer as aggressive as the war cancer wages against us." -- Barack Obama
The medical community may not yet have answers to the disease that claimed the lives of Barack Obama's mother and former Harper's Bazaar editor Liz Tilberis, but there are rays of hope.
Credit: AP Images/Patrick Demarchelier/Harprer's Bazaar
Her preferred brand was Veuve Clicquot, and cases of it were on hand in the office to celebrate birthdays, holidays, or just the end of a particularly challenging workday. She'd tell staffers stories about her days back in London as a fashion editor, how she'd begin every shoot with a little bubbly.
"She said that's how everyone relaxed and had fun and how she got the best pictures," says Annemarie Iverson, who edited the beauty and fashion news pages for the magazine under Tilberis. "It was her party, and you wanted to be a part of it."
"We were in Milan for the shows, and Liz, who was going through chemo at the time, and I were staying at the same hotel," says Faith Kates Kogan, founder of Next Management and president of the board of directors for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF). "Her oncologist, Peter Dottino, who's a friend, had said, 'Watch out for Liz. Tell her to go to sleep early.' I walked into the lobby at the end of the day, and she was surrounded by people and drinking champagne. She laughed and said, 'I just want one more glass.' She was up later than I was."
By describing her glamorous life (morale-boosting phone calls from Princess Diana, get-well brownies from JFK Jr.) in No Time to Die, her 1998 memoir, Tilberis managed to weave her sharp-witted optimism into the story of her battle with the disease. And when it came to talking about her illness through this magazine, she was fearless.
"At first, she was okay with just assigning the stories and having the information out there," says Iverson. "But then we said, 'Look, Liz, we need your picture in the magazine.' It changed people's lives. There was no lying about what was going on."
As a result of her openness, others have been encouraged to do the same, including Angelina Jolie on behalf of her mother, Marcheline Bertrand, who died in 2007 after fighting ovarian cancer. Because President Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, also died from the disease -- she lost her battle in 1995, less than a year after her diagnosis -- raising awareness and funds for research is a priority for Obama.
His efforts are just in time. In 2008, an estimated 21,650 women in the U.S. were diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and 15,520 died from the disease. Compared with breast cancer, with its roughly 180,000 new cases each year, it's rare. But it's the fifth-leading cause of cancer death among American women, and there's no effective screening test for the disease. Typically, it's diagnosed in advanced stages and the prognosis is grim. Researchers are focused on treatment and prevention, developing more targeted therapies to keep the cancer at bay once it's detected, and identifying genetic variants that increase risk. Much of their work is possible because of Tilberis's efforts.
Next: Ovarian Cancer Research and How to Protect Yourself from Ovarian Cancer
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