All of us in the metastatic cancer community are deeply sad that Sarah Harding is now dealing with secondary breast cancer, but the language used is problematic:
Author Marion Keyes commented on Twitter:
It’s awful news about Sarah Harding made worse by all this, “she’s a fighter”, “she’ll beat this thing” etc, because that is not how cancer works. If ‘fighting’ worked everyone would recover. Instead it puts a heavy burden on poor people who are already very sick and very scared… the language used to convey goodwill is awful.
METUP-UK contributed this comment on this piece for Total Health:
Sarah has said she is having treatment on the NHS. Activists in the metastatic cancer community are keen to highlight the disparities between private and NHS treatment. Within the NHS, treatment is rationed for metastatic breast cancer. Often, but not always, private health insurers will fund more drug lines than the NHS and have more flexibility in their treatment plans, which is important for management of the disease.
Breast cancer advocacy group METUP UK, which campaigns for better treatment for everyone who has metastatic breast cancer, have noted a rise in private fundraisers for drugs, which may not be as easy to access on the NHS.