This is from the AP. Other reports mentioned only “complications,” which we now know to be pneumonia. It’s very common for myeloma patients to develop pneumonia.
Ferraro died at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she had gone Monday for a procedure to relieve back pain caused by a fracture. Such fractures are common in people with her type of blood cancer, multiple myeloma, because of the thinning of their bones, said Dr. Noopur Raje, the Mass General doctor who treated her.
Ferraro, however, developed pneumonia, which made it impossible to perform the procedure, and it soon became clear she didn’t have long to live, Raje said. Since she was too ill to return to New York, her family went to Boston.
Raje said it seemed Ferraro held out until her husband and three children arrived. They were all at her bedside when she passed, she said.
“Gerry actually waited for all of them to come, which I think was incredible,” said Raje, director of the meyloma program at the hospital’s cancer center. “They were all able to say their goodbyes to Mom.”
Press release
New book urges use of antidepressants to treat and prevent cancer
Killing Cancer by Dr. Julian Lieb reviews medical research showing that antidepressants have potent anticancer properties.
BURLINGTON, Vt.
More than 80 clinical and laboratory studies illuminate the anticancer properties of antidepressants. Antidepressants kill cancer cells, inhibit their proliferation, protect nonmalignant cells from damage by ionizing radiation and chemotherapy toxicity, convert multidrug resistant cells to sensitive, and target the mitochondria of cancer cells while sparing those of healthy ones. Depression significantly increases the risk of cancer, and increases and accelerates its mortality. Antidepressants are capable of arresting cancer even in advanced stages, and occasionally eradicating it. Published reports to date reveal that antidepressants are potentially effective for such treatment resistant malignancies as cancer of the lungs, kidneys, and liver, malignant gliomas of the brain, and inflammatory breast cancer. Lieb points out that the use of relatively inexpensive antidepressants could make cancer treatment available to low-income and disadvantaged segments of the population. By slashing the cost of cancer care, antidepressants could energize health reform and economic recovery.
“Great advances seldom emanate from ivory tower medical schools or government health agencies,” Lieb says. “They are often made by outsiders that draw together observations whose relationship to each other had never been suspected.”
In making the case for antidepressants, Lieb discusses prostaglandins, molecules that regulate the physiology of every cell in the body. When produced above a critical threshold, prostaglandins can cause many disorders including depression and cancer. By inhibiting the production of prostaglandins, antidepressants can defeat cancer. Cancer is not a hundred different diseases, as touted, but one disease with innumerable variations.
Killing Cancer is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels.
About the Author
Dr. Julian Lieb is a former Yale School of Medicine psychiatry professor and director of the Dana Psychiatric Clinic at Yale-New Haven Hospital. The author or co-author of 48 published articles and 11 books, Lieb is a recognized expert on the immunostimulating and antimicrobial properties of lithium and antidepressants, and the anticancer properties of antidepressants. He has worked closely with pioneers in prostaglandin research, and has been invited to address international cancer conferences in Greece, Germany and India.
I got to hear Ferraro speak once while she was on the campaign trail. It was a standing room only crowd. The auditorium (at San Jose State University) was packed. I had to stand outside the auditorium on a staircase to listen. I could still hear most of what she said. She was something else. I remember one of her lines about taking polluters to court instead of lunch. That was a very brave thing to say!