{"id":544,"date":"2009-08-11T23:12:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T03:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=544"},"modified":"2009-08-11T23:12:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-12T03:12:00","slug":"a-reality-check-on-that-canadian-brain-tumor-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=544","title":{"rendered":"A reality check on that Canadian “Brain Tumor” story"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reality check on a reality check<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Still, I found Holmes tale both compelling and troubling. So I decided to check a little further. On the Mayo Clinic’s website, Shona Holmes is a success story. But it’s somewhat different story than all the headlines might have implied. Holmes’ ‘brain tumour’ was actually a Rathke’s Cleft Cyst on her pituitary gland. To quote an American source, the John Wayne Cancer Center, ‘Rathke’s Cleft Cysts are not true tumors or neoplasms; instead they are benign cysts.’
There’s no doubt Holmes had a problem that needed treatment, and she was given appointments with the appropriate specialists in Ontario. She chose not to wait the few months to see them. But it’s a far cry from the life-or-death picture portrayed by Holmes on the TV ads or by McConnell in his attacks.
In Senator McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, one out of three people under age 65 do not have any health insurance. They don’t have to worry about wait times for hip or knee replacement or cancer surgery — they can’t get care. The median household income in Kentucky is $37,186 — not quite enough for the $97,000 bill at the Mayo Clinic. CNN didn’t mention that in its ‘Reality Check.'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A reality check on a reality check: Still, I found Holmes tale both compelling and troubling. So I decided to check a little further. On the Mayo Clinic’s website, Shona … Continue reading “A reality check on that Canadian “Brain Tumor” story”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,82,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anecdote-off","category-canada","category-waiting-times"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}