Angelina's choice.

This is an opinion piece on how a celebrity's personal choice to undergo prophylactic mastectomy on discovery of an aberrant gene, when publicly promoted, carries in itself the power to influence and impact healthcare trends and decisions. When celebrities advocate causes that are universally and uniformly acceptable and indisputable as the best in the realm of healthcare and cure (e.g. no smoking), it creates well-being and awareness in society at large. But those which are personal choices made out of a repertoire of other available and effective options may, because of celebrity preference, don the mantle of a norm. They thus run the danger of being blindly replicated by others without proper awareness and knowledge of the true potential of disease, risk factors, and other existing remedial or risk-reducing measures. Society should thus be encouraged to question, debate, and understand the validity, authenticity, and reason of the choices, especially those with a medical basis. This tempering of information with intelligence and rationale and making informed choices based on facts will serve humanity as a whole.
KEYWORDS:
BRCA mutation, Breast cancer, prophylactic mastectomy

PMID: 24455660