Simone Giertz (previously), a roboticist/satirist/artist/youtuber, has announced that she has a brain tumor the size of a golf-ball behind one of her eyes; it is operable but she could experience longterm vision-loss, paralysis, or cognitive impairment. Her video announcement is brave and funny and moving, and as one of her ardent admirers, I am certainly pulling for her. (via Four Short Links) Read the rest

An unnamed, paralyzed prisoner in one of Corizon Correctional Healthcare's for-profit prisons in Arizona chewed part of his left hand off because Corizon refused to give him the correct medication for his pain. Read the rest

After losing their 19-year court battle with the US Department of Justice, tobacco giants Altria, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard and Philip Morris USA are now beginning to run their court-ordered "corrective statements" as full-page newspaper ads, major web display ads, and primetime TV spots, containing frank admissions that they violated federal racketeering and fraud laws when they conspired to cover up the fact that their products killed their customers and that they intentionally designed their products to be as addictive as possible. Read the rest

UCSF researchers have published an important paper in PLOS Biology that draws on internal documents from the US sugar industry lobby that shows that the industry deliberately suppressed research on the link between sucrose and bladder cancer and heart disease, and then deliberately sowed misinformation about the health effects of sugar, using tactics straight out of the tobacco industry's cancer-denial playbook. Read the rest

Kate Beaton (previously) is the creator of the astoundingly great Hark! A Vagrant webcomic) and is a bona fide Canadian culture hero; she is also in the midst of a terrible family crisis and wants our help. Read the rest

Evan Greer writes, "Anne Feeney has been raising hell with an acoustic guitar since you were in diapers. She's toured the world, rambling from protest to picket line with the likes of Pete Seeger and Billy Bragg. She was the first woman to become the president of a musicians union in the U.S. and has raised tens of thousands of dollars for striking workers. Anne has been battling cancer, and winning! for the past several years, prompting Anne's daughter, Amy Sue Berlin, to gather a notable lineup of musicians to contribute to a tribute album for Anne, with acts like punk icons Anti-Flag, Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul and Mary), and Dan Bern covering her rabble rousing songs. With the fights we have ahead of us in the next four years and beyond, we're we're gonna need songs like these stuck in our heads." Read the rest

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer reviewed 1,000+ papers investigating the link between coffee and cancer and concluded that the WHO's 1991 classification of coffee as a carcinogen was mistaken. Read the rest

Coffee enemas have been around since the 19th century (when medical science was a mess) and they persist today (when woo advocates like to hold up the fact that medical practices have persisted since the 19th century as proof that they work). In case you were wondering, they're bad for you. Read the rest

The largely unregulated supplement industry sells a variety of weird and sometimes dangerous stuff that it wink-nudge promises will cure what ails you, but even the most accurately labeled, evidence-based supplements can make sick people much, much sicker. Read the rest

Jeff writes, "I received my diagnosis late on Friday afternoon of what would be a very long weekend. I had really hoped to avoid brain surgery in my life." Read the rest

Writer Spider Robinson writes, "My daughter Terri Luanna da Silva, a Stage IV breast cancer patient since 2011, is now in hospice in the Palliative Care wing of Middlesex Hospital, 28 Crescent St, Middletown CT 06457-36454. She is not expected to recover. (No visitors, please. But cards and flowers are welcome.)" Read the rest

The USPTO awarded Patent 8,609,158 last December for a mix of "evening primrose oil, rice, sesame seeds, green beans, coffee, meat, cheese, milk, green tea extract, evening primrose seeds, and wine" that "rebukes cancer, cancer cells, and kills cancer" -- the accompanying extract states, "it works." Sounds legit. Read the rest

Podcaster and author PG Holyfield (of "Murder at Avedon Hill"), a widely respected and much-loved figure, is, quite suddenly and quite quickly, dying of cancer. Read the rest

Simon Owens writes, "I got a chance to interview Jay Lake extensively not long before his death and wrote a long profile on him and his cancer blogging that explores the impact he's had, both on the cancer and science fiction communities. He spoke extensively on what he hoped his legacy would be and how he'd be remembered after he died." Read the rest

Here's a scarf woven from data representing the genome of talented sf writer and good guy Jay Lake, who died of cancer this week. Last summer, Jay's friends raised funds to sequence his genome in the hopes of finding a targeted cure. Astrid Bear used the data to weave the scarf, focusing on the 143 pairs of chromosome 18, which was the identified culprit in Jay's cancer. The scarf itself is a thing of beauty, and Jay loved it. Read the rest

Nebula Award winning writer/editor Eugie Foster has aggressive cancer in her sinuses, and while she's insured, her insurance sucks. She's asking her friends and colleagues to help her make ends meet. She's got a ton of books and ebooks for sale -- or you can PayPal her at eugie@eugiefoster.com. Read the rest

When Iain Banks announced in April that he was dying of gall bladder cancer, he said that his forthcoming novel The Quarry would be his last. I've just read it, and though I came to it with high expectations, I find that I was still surprised by just how good this novel is, and how it revisits so many of the motifs from Banks's earlier novels, and what a spectacular blend of emotions it carries. Read the rest