Cathy Seipp, RIP

At 2:05 PM Pacific Time, I think, an hour or two ago.

Lewis Fein writes:

We lost Cathy at 2:05 PM today. May her memory last, her family persevere and her friends endure this terrible loss. We'll all have more to write shortly, but for now I'd like to truly praise Susan Estrich. She has the classiest column out there about Cathy. A real letter of love and admiration. Read it. Goodbye, Cathy.

Susan Estrich's remembrance is here. She quotes Cathy on lung cancer:

I’m beginning to feel a responsibility to point out that lung cancer, which kills more people annually (about 163,000) than the next four most common cancers (colon, breast, pancreatic and prostate) combined, is terribly underfunded compared to other diseases: $950 in research money per lung cancer death, compared to $8800 for breast cancer and $34,000 for AIDS.

"That’s because the vast majority of lung cancer (about 85 percent) is still caused by smoking, even though the rate for lifelong nonsmoking women like me (and Christopher Reeve’s widow) has been going up for some mysterious reason, and the general attitude is that smokers deserve whatever they get.

"But half of all lung cancer patients have been nonsmokers by the time of diagnosis, sometimes for decades, like Warren Zevon. If they deserve to get sick, then I suppose so do people who are overweight or don’t exercise or who have promiscuous sex with strangers, all of which are contributing factors for various illnesses that get much more sympathy in the form of research dollars. Maybe the amount of attention we pay to a disease should have less to do with how many celebrities, magazine editors and junk bond kings carry its banner, and more with how many people actually die of it.”

A prayer for her and her daughter Maia as well.

posted by Ace at 06:50 PM

| Access Comments