Arthur Ashe and AIDS: Did the Public Have the Right to Know His Diagnosis?

Do prominent public figures who are ill have some type of responsibility to reveal their diseases, or are they entitled to the same privacy as “ordinary” people? That question exploded into the public sphere in April 1992 when tennis star and humanitarian Arthur Ashe learned that a newspaper was about to make public his previously […]

“Brian’s Song” at 50 Still Offers Lessons About Cancer for Today

When “Brian’s Song” made its debut as an ABC Movie of the Week in 1971, this tear-jerker about a professional football player who died of cancer became a surprisingly popular hit. Fifty years later, it has sunk into obscurity, along with “Brian Piccolo: A Short Season,” a book written by Jeannie Morris, a journalist and […]

Michael J. Fox: The Impact of a Very Famous Patient

When some people learn that I wrote a scholarly book on celebrity illness, they are skeptical. After all, celebrities are associated with a certain superficiality and self-promotion. How much can we really learn about famous people who go public with as serious a topic as disease? Quite a lot, it turns out. From Lou Gehrig […]

What Alex Trebek has taught us about celebrity illness

When Alex Trebek recently went on national television and described the excruciating belly pain he had experienced due to chemotherapy for Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, it was a moment unlike any other in the history of celebrity illnesses. Trebek rated the pain, which he experienced during the taping of “Jeopardy,” an 11 out of 10 […]

Who Gets a Paid Obituary in the New York Times–and Why?

Getting an obituary in the New York Times is about the best posthumous status symbol there is. It connotes having lived a significant, important life. There are at least three books that reprint or examine these obituaries. But what about the paid obituaries, the death notices in a tiny font adjacent to the stories of […]

Five Myths on Presidential Health

When Hillary Clinton announced a diagnosis of pneumonia last week, soon after leaving a Sept. 11 memorial service, she elicited a predictably partisan response. Fans of Donald Trump speculated that she wouldn’t survive the year, while her own supporters pointed out that hardworking people get sick all the time. Both presidential candidates have been pressured […]

Before Charlie Sheen, They Went Public With HIV

Charlie Sheen’s announcement on Tuesday’s Today show that he is HIV-positive was shocking, but when Hollywood activist Elizabeth Glaser and tennis great Arthur Ashe announced their diagnoses of HIV 25 years ago, it was stunning. At the time, AIDS, which eventually killed both Ashe and Glaser, was incurable. And HIV was still incorrectly thought of […]

Jimmy Carter: Our Latest Famous Patient

Former President Jimmy Carter’s recent announcement that he has metastatic melanoma is the most recent example of the complex relationship that exists between famous people and illness disclosure. Over the past 25 to 50 years, celebrities have increasingly come forward with news of their diagnoses and prognoses. Although providing information can represent an additional burden […]

Fighting Mental Illness on the Ballfield

COVID

Mental illness remains highly stigmatized, even after celebrities like Brooke Shields, Mel Gibson and Robin Williams went public with their stories. So it was really a big deal 60 years ago when the Boston Red Sox outfielder Jimmy Piersall wrote two articles in the Saturday Evening Post entitled “They Called Me Crazy—And I Was.” Mr. […]

The Father Who Fought for Lorenzo’s Oil

COVID

Augusto Odone surely was one of the best fathers of all time. Along with his wife, Michaela, Mr. Odone defied and then amazed the medical profession when he devised an apparent treatment for his son Lorenzo’s incurable neurological disease. The treatment was called “Lorenzo’s Oil.” Mr. Odone died last week, but he left an indelible […]