From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

This week, the selling and owning of cancer as cause and identity.

The way Hollywood used it, it was a very clean disease, a very clean way to die.

You just quietly faded away.

I think about all those scenes where women are wearing scarves on their heads and wonder,

am I like them now?

There's a lot of comedy for me in people trying to keep themselves together and do the right

thing when it's impossible to do the right thing.

When you have cancer, that's just happening every hour.

I can't even watch a Hallmark commercial without crying.

So for me to be on national television and plead for my son's life

was nothing short of a miracle.

The disjunction between hope and hype was particularly acute.

Three years go by and the media is asking,

wait a second, where are the promised cures?

This is on the media.

If you enjoy insights into sex and money and accept the inevitability of death,

I suggest you check out WNYC's death, sex, and money.

Get it wherever you get your podcasts or listen on the WNYC app.

From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone this week with the second of two shows exploring the nature of cancer.

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