May 13, 2009
Farrah Fawcett has been battling anal cancer since her diagnosis in August 2006. It seems she's in the news every week, but surprisingly, the only media interview she’s given since her diagnosis was in August to the Los Angeles Times. They published an article from their three-hour conversation with Fawcett on Monday.
Fawcett allowed the interview on condition that the L.A. Times would delay its publication until she or Craig Nevius granted permission. Nevius is executive producer of the documentary Farrah’s Story. It follows Fawcett through cancer treatment.
She said, "There will be a good time, and what I have to say then will be more important.”
Nevius granted permission to the L.A. Times on April 29, and stated that the interview should be published within five days of the film’s NBC broadcast on Friday, May 15.
Fawcett said in August, "It's much easier to go through something and deal with it without being under a microscope. It was stressful. I was terrified of getting the chemo. It's not pleasant. And the radiation is not pleasant."
Since 2006, the National Enquirer has been publishing information about Fawcett’s cancer while being treated at UCLA Medical Center.
Fawcett believed someone at the hospital was leaking her medical records tothe magazine, and she set up a sting operation.
She said, "I actually kept saying for months and months and months, 'This is coming from [UCLA].’ I was never more sure of anything in my life."
In order to prove her theory, Fawcett decided to not tell her friends and relatives when she found out that her cancer had returned in May 2007.
"I set it up with the doctor," she said. "I said, 'OK, you know and I know.' . . . I knew that if it came out, it was coming from UCLA."
The news was in the National Enquirer within several days.
"I couldn't believe how fast it came out," Fawcett said. "Maybe four days."
After telling UCLA, the medical center started an investigation and found that one employee had been accessing her medical records more than her doctors. The senior medical official at that time refused to tell Fawcett the employee’s name.
While this investigation was occurring, UCLA asked her to donate money to their hospital system several times in order to create a foundation in her name.
Fawcett said, “They're acting like nothing happened. It's like, 'This will make it all OK.' I felt that all of a sudden, they were trying awfully hard to push it. Too pushy. In other words, it made me suspicious."
Finally after several months of Fawcett’s lawyers requesting the name of the UCLA employee who leaked her medical records, the hospital relinquished the name of the administrative specialist, Lawanda Jackson.
UCLA was to fire her in July 2007, but she quit beforehand. The medical record leaks were linked to Jackson by federal prosecutors. In December 2008, Jackson pleaded guilty to a felony charge of violating federal medical privacy laws for commercial purposes. Before she could be sentenced, she died of cancer in March 2009.
Prosecutors claim that Jackson was paid $4,600 in her husband’s name by the National Enquirer since 2006.
Fawcett said to the L.A. Times that she would like to see the National Enquirer charged criminally for enticing the UCLA employee into stealing her medical records.
"I'm holding onto the hope that there is some reason that I got cancer and there is something -- that may not be very clear to me right now -- but that I will do," she said.
In March, she traveled to Germany for cancer treatment. Paparazzi and various news outlets have been following her constantly.
Recently, Fawcett’s cancer has spread to her liver. Her partner, Ryan O’Neal told People Magazine on May 4 that she has lost her hair, is bedridden and her treatments have been stopped.
How is our world so inept that they still don’t have adequate cures for cancer, but pharmaceutical companies rake in billions and billions of dollars every year?
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It's sad.
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