Author:
STEPHEN M. SILVERMAN (PEOPLE.COM)
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Date Posted: Thu, October 23 2003, 18:00:49 PDT
PEOPLE Daily News, p.m. update, 10/23/03
By Anderson Remarks Make Some Docs Sick
STEPHEN M. SILVERMAN
Anderson Remarks Make Some Docs Sick
Pamela Anderson's comments that her liver is improving but she only has 10-15
years to live isn't sitting well with some hepatitis C experts.
Anderson Remarks Make Some Docs Sick
Pamela Anderson, who jumped the waves on TV's "Baywatch," is now making waves
in the medical community after her recent remarks about living with hepatitis
C, a disease she was first diagnosed as having in 2001.
"I think I've got a good 10 years left in me, which is sad. Maybe 15, if I'm
lucky," Anderson, 36, told US Weekly magazine. "It's scary," she says, "but
lately I've been feeling great. For some reason, my liver keeps getting
healthier."
Some medical professionals, however, are voicing their dismay over Anderson's
comments.
"This 10-year window she's given herself is her fantasy -- not anything I can
think of clinically," says Massachusetts-based clinical practitioner Richard
S. Ferri, who edits NumedX, a national medical journal that deals with
hepatitis C.
He called Anderson's statements "inflammatory. There's no reason to believe
that a person who is hepatitis-C positive would not be able to live a full and
rich life with the treatments that are available today."
Teresa Hanbey, founder and executive director of the 11-year-old Hepatitis C
Outreach Project in Portland, Ore., says that because of Anderson's quotes,
"My phone lines are lit up and there are e-mails from desperate and scared
patients who think they, too, are going to die soon."
Hanby goes on to fume that on "Larry King Live," Anderson "showed how
ill-informed she was about her own disease when claimed she feared 'psoriasis' from
her hepatitis, rather than the more accurate risk of cirrhosis. One would
expect a spokesperson to understand both the disease and the consequences of
misinformation to those who suffer from hepatitis C and those who are learning about
it for the first time."
But Bob Madison, director of communications and marketing for the American
Liver Foundation in New York, defended Anderson. "She's a great friend of the
ALF and served as the grand marshal of our motorcycle rally to raise awareness,"
he says. "She is a tireless advocate and has been helpful overall to the
cause of hepatitis C -- the first celebrity ever to come out and say she has it."
As for her diagnosis, Madison suggests, "The progress of hepatitis C is
different for every patient."
Anderson (who has said she contracted the disease from a dirty tattoo needle)
reportedly is not taking Interferon, a drug that hepatitis patients often
inject. Instead, her homeopathic doctor, Wendy Hewland, tells Us that she "made a
single remedy specifically for Pam."
As for the actress's future, Dr. H. Aaron Aronow of the UCLA National
Neurological AIDS Bank (which also does hepatitis C research) says, "I'm sympathetic
to anyone who has a chronic debilitating illness, including Pamela Anderson."
But, he adds, "I certainly would never tell a patient she had 'X' amount of
time left."
www.hcop.org
thanbey@hcop.org
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