“A banner week for CDA (Celebrity Disease Awareness),” Alan Cassels, Health News Review.
Celebrity disease awareness (or pushing of disease-mongered conditions) is not going away soon. But maybe it could be tied to the goal of informing consumers instead of misleading them or promoting personal financial incentives. Here are a few celebs, for better or worse, recently found sharing their disease-related insights.
- Actress Amanda Peet urges parents to vaccinate their kids.
- Actor Bradley Cooper has encouraged people to register as bone marrow donors.
- Kim Kardashian promotes a drug for morning sickness.
- Angelina Jolie shares her efforts to prevent being diagnosed with breast cancer.
- Ben Stiller misinforms the public while sharing his experience with a “lifesaving” prostate cancer test.
- A Restasis story shows that actress Marisa Tomei was working on the company’s dime as she “shared her struggle” about chronic dry eye.
- The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that famous comedian Cathy Jones was said to be “on a mission to get women to start talking about female sexual health after menopause — and particularly, their vaginas.” There was no mention of the drug company Novo Nordisk Canada Inc., which sells a vaginal hormone pill and hence is eager to get coverage of a condition known as vaginal atrophy.
Related:
- Celebrity Effect, Breast Cancer Consortium Hot Topic
- Angelina Jolie and the One Percent by Gayle Sulik, Scientific American, May 20, 2013.