RIP Laurie Becklund: Journalist Wanted Big Data to Tackle Metastatic Breast Cancer

I didn’t know Laurie, but we did exchange emails this past fall as she prepared her MedX talk. She was a gifted journalist and we are truly fortunate she used her talents as a reporter to explain the urgent need for change in metastatic breast cancer outcomes and propose a Big Data innovation.

MBCNbuzz

Laurie’s 2013 MedX talk

Journalist Laurie Becklund died on February 8, 2015 from metastatic breast cancer at age 66. On February 20, 2015, Laurie’s byline appeared in the Los Angeles Times for the last time.

In an Op-Ed piece called “As I Lay Dying,“ Laurie explained how she came to be one of 150,000 US people living with metastatic breast cancer and one of the 40,000 Americans this incurable disease will kill this year.

As Laurie noted in her opening sentence, metastatic breast cancer is the kind that kills people–no one dies from early-stage breast cancer. But as Laurie discovered, cancer can come back–even decades after someone successfully completes their treatment. In Laurie’s case, her breast cancer came back 13 years after her initial diagnosis. Scans revealed the cancer was now in her bones, liver, lungs and brain. When cancer spreads outside the breast, it is no longer curable–with…

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