George,

I am furious with U. S. News & World Report.

Their April 9 issue featured an article about Bernadine Healey’s encounter with cancer and an excerpt from her book about the experience. Dr. Healey, a former director of N.I.H., is quoted on the cover as saying “How I refused to give in.” I didn’t search the magazine to verify this quote, but presumably it is in the book or U. S. News wouldn’t have put it on the cover.

This statement made me enormously angry, to the extent that I threw the magazine away unread, and canceled my subscription.

I knew several people who have died of cancer. One is my late husband Art Greene; another is Emily Couric. Both of them refused to give in; they remained gallant and courageous to the end. Anyone reading this letter probably knows someone who died of cancer. It’s likely that none of them had the wealth, or the extensive access to medical information, that Healey has through her N.I.H. connections; nevertheless I believe that they had excellent doctors and good advice and received the best treatment available. And they died.

I consider this quotation to be a direct and infuriating insult to anyone who has died of cancer, and to anyone who has helped look after a cancer patient. “Giving in” versus “fighting” is only marginally related to the outcome. That is a thoughtless, unhelpful, and highly irresponsible statement. It will undoubtedly add to the pain of the families of cancer victims, who may find themselves wondering what else they, or the patient, could have done. Blaming the victim has become all too common nowadays and it maddens me when someone like Healey does it to my husband. I will never read U.S. News again, but I fear the damage has already been done. And my rage at the insult continues.

Ginger Greene (Electronic mail, April 10, 2007)