Lisa Bonchek Adams and the Politics of Blogging About Cancer

At the Atlantic, "On Live-Tweeting One's Suffering: Journalists question the ethics of cancer—of fighting it, and of blogging about it."

Also at PuffHo, "Bill Keller Criticized For Op-Ed About Cancer Patient Lisa Bonchek Adams":

@nytkeller The main thing is that I am alive. Do not write me off and make statements about how my life ends TIL IT DOES, SIR.

— Lisa Bonchek Adams (@AdamsLisa) January 13, 2014

ORIGINAL STORY: New York Times columnist Bill Keller is under fire after writing an op-ed that appeared to criticize Lisa Bonchek Adams, a cancer patient blogging about her health battle.

Adams has been writing online and tweeting about her experiences fighting advanced breast cancer. In a piece entitled "Heroic Measures," Keller compared her "fierce" approach to that of his father-in-law, who he said died a "calm" death in a British hospital that emphasized palliative care. "His death seemed to me a humane and honorable alternative to the frantic medical trench warfare that often makes an expensive misery of death in America," he wrote.

Keller continued: "Her digital presence is no doubt a comfort to many of her followers. On the other hand, as cancer experts I consulted pointed out, Adams is the standard-bearer for an approach to cancer that honors the warrior, that may raise false hopes, and that, implicitly, seems to peg patients like my father-in-law as failures."

The backlash against Keller's piece on Twitter and elsewhere online was swift...

Keller's piece is here, "Heroic Measures."

That's a kinda grim piece. But remember, it's not okay to blog about cancer, according the totalitarian left.

The Guardian's already pulled a piece by Keller's wife Emma. Only the headline remains, "Forget funeral selfies. What are the ethics of tweeting a terminal illness?"

Keller's making the case for "palliative" treatment, which sounds mostly about letting the dying die without a big dramatic struggle to hang on. At this point in my life, I'd probably go the aggressive route, like Ms. Adams (although I'd be praying like never before, unlike some others I've blogged about).