I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: News Articles => Topic started by: okarol on January 19, 2009, 01:47:07 PM
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Apple’s Jobs Said to Be Considering Liver Transplant
By Connie Guglielmo, John Lauerman and Dina Bass
Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs is considering a liver transplant as a result of complications after treatment for pancreatic cancer in 2004, according to people who are monitoring his illness.
Patients with Jobs’s condition can survive for 20 years or more from the time of their original cancer diagnosis, and the surgery often gives good results, said Steven Brower, professor and chairman of surgery at Mercer University School of Medicine in Savannah, Georgia. Brower hasn’t treated Jobs and doesn’t know details of his condition.
Jobs, who appeared increasingly thin and frail throughout 2008, hasn’t provided details about his condition. In a statement released Jan. 5, Jobs said he was suffering from a “hormone imbalance” and that the remedy for his weight loss was “relatively simple.” On Jan. 14, he announced that he was taking a five-month medical leave because his health issues were “more complex” than he originally thought.
In a telephone interview today, Jobs said he won’t comment further on his health.
“Why don’t you guys leave me alone -- why is this important?” Jobs said.
Apple spokesman Steve Dowling declined to comment. The company’s board members -- including Intuit Inc. Chairman Bill Campbell, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt -- either couldn’t be reached or declined to comment.
Private Matter
Apple didn’t comment in detail on Jobs’s health last year, saying it was a private matter. In June, after his appearance at an Apple developers’ conference renewed concern among investors that his cancer had returned, the company said only that Jobs, 53, was suffering from a “common bug.”
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, fell $1.05 to $82.33 at 4 p.m. New York time today in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The shares lost 57 percent last year.
Jobs, who co-founded Apple in 1976 and returned in 1997, transformed the company by updating the Mac with sleeker and thinner models, including the iMac in 1998 and the ultra-thin MacBook Air notebook last year. His focus on stylish and simple- to-use gadgets won over millions of buyers, turning the iPod media player and iPhone handset into best sellers.
Surgery
Jobs said in 2004 that he underwent surgery to remove a neuroendocrine islet cell tumor, a rare, slow-growing type of cancer that affects as many as 3,000 people in the U.S. annually. These tumors are distinguished by their tendency to overproduce hormones such as insulin. Excess hormones can lead to low blood sugar, low blood pressure or other symptoms.
Neuroendocrine tumors that originate in the pancreas, as Jobs’s did, often spread to the liver. One option doctors have in these cases is to perform a liver transplant, Brower said.
“It’s one of the tumors for which transplantation can be considered,” said Brower, who is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. “It’s rare, but it’s sometimes done.”
Jobs underwent extensive abdominal surgery when his tumor first appeared. He may have undergone a Whipple procedure, in which parts of his pancreas, small intestine, stomach and bile duct would have been removed, to try to rid his body of all cancerous tissue. The pancreas often ceases functioning after such surgery and needs to be removed.
Treatment Outcome
Brower said the transplant might work out well in a patient whose neuroendocrine cancer began in the pancreas, in part because this tumor type often spreads only to the liver and grows so slowly. Even after having had a Whipple procedure, a patient might expect to have good quality of life, he said.
“The outcome can be quite good,” he said. “With immunosuppressive drugs, the patient can expect to have a significant, durable life expectancy.”
Some liver transplant patients get part of an organ from a living donor. After the operation, the livers of the donor and recipient grow back to normal size.
A patient getting a liver transplant for a neuroendocrine tumor that has spread from the pancreas might get a partial organ, Brower said. Complete organs that come from cadavers are in short supply, and are generally reserved for patients with liver failure, cirrhosis or certain kinds of liver cancer, he said.
Companies have a requirement to clear up any misleading information on a CEO’s health, said Stanley Sporkin, a former federal judge and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement director. While the SEC doesn’t require a company to disclose health information, the company still should, he said.
Informing Shareholders
“The company almost has a duty or responsibility not to let the company be run by rumors,” Sporkin said. Informing shareholders is good corporate governance, while failing to do so may open the company up to insider trading, he said.
A shareholder suit related to Apple’s disclosures about Jobs’s health would be difficult, said Mark Molumphy, who represented investors in a lawsuit that claimed Apple executives lied to shareholders about backdated option awards. Apple settled the suit in September.
“Someone would probably have a good argument that this information is material,” Molumphy said. “The hard part would be to show that the board or company officers withheld information on his true health condition. How do you prove what his true health condition is?”
To contact the reporters on this story: Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net; John Lauerman in Boston at rgale5@bloomberg.net. Dina Bass in Seattle at dbass2@bloomberg.net;
Last Updated: January 16, 2009 16:28 EST
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=af4Bdn_Wfx7g&refer=home#
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Has Bloomberg Crossed the Line of Ethics?
posted by Thom Holwerda on Mon 19th Jan 2009 15:25 UTC
Speculation about Steve Jobs' health situation has been a hot topic for a while now, and Bloomberg is jumping on the bandwagon as well - but you have to wonder if there's a limit as to how far journalists should go in order to gain insight into Jobs' health. While his position as CEO of a large publicly traded company puts him on a pedestal, I do believe there are limits to the hight of this pedestal. Bloomberg grossly crossed the line in my book, and Jobs seems to agree with me. "Why don't you guys leave me alone?"
Bloomberg wrote an article January 16 this year, in which they state that "Steve Jobs is considering a liver transplant as a result of complications after treatment for pancreatic cancer in 2004, according to people who are monitoring his illness." This sounds rather serious, but anyone who has been on the internet for longer than, say, three minutes will immediately have a little red flag going up when they read "according to people ".
The little red flag is completely justified in this case, as the "people" amount to Steven Brower, professor and chairman of surgery at the Mercer University School of Medicine in Savannah, Georgia. While I'm sure that Mr Brower is very competent at what he does, he has absolutely no relation to Jobs whatsoever. He has not treated Jobs, he has not seen any medical records, no nothing.
It is to be noted, however, that Bloomberg may have very well taken Brower's remarks out of context - I can imagine Brower saying something along the lines of "it is sometimes necessary for pancreatic cancer survivors to undergo a liver transplant", and Bloomberg turning that into the absolute statement that appeared in the final article. As you read further down the article, it appears that this is actually what happened: "One option doctors have in these cases is to perform a liver transplant," Brower said, "It's one of the tumors for which transplantation can be considered. It's rare, but it's sometimes done."
When Bloomberg confronted Steve Jobs with these "findings" over the phone, Jobs replied in a direct tone and understandable manner: "Why don't you guys leave me alone -- why is this important?" Jobs said. Apple also declined to comment any further.
While I agree with Adam that the interest in Steve Jobs' health is justified, with it being a direct consequence of Jobs' and Apple's own decisions and actions, I do believe that journalists should have certain ethics when it comes to these matters. I think that contacting a random doctor, who has not treated Jobs in any way, and ask him to make comments on Jobs' possible health situation, and then grossly exaggerating these doctor's findings for nothing but hits and clicks is far beyond my personal boundaries of what's ethically acceptable and what isn't. Pedestal or not.
I'm sure there are journalists out there thinking about taking this even a step further, by directly contacting the doctors who are treating Jobs. This is something that I find even more deplorable, because it puts doctors in the awkward position of having to invoke doctor-patient confidentiality. I personally have minor experience with this, as I studied "real-life" patients when I studied Psychology at University. I've read patient files of some pretty seriously ill people, some of which easily kept me awake at night. When friends and family asked me about what I was studying, I couldn't tell them anything. While this is hardly comparable to 'real' doctors' experiences, I do know what it's like when people push you to reveal information you're really not supposed to give out. It's very unpleasant.
I hope our colleagues at other websites do not stoop this low, but I'm afraid that there's little stopping them.
http://osnews.com/story/20798/Has_Bloomberg_Crossed_the_Line_of_Ethics_
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I have to agree wit Steve Jobs, it is none of our business. It is a private matter about his health. I dislike when a doctor comments about a person they never have seen or treated, but the media is most to blame for spreading and creating stories.
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I'm sure if Jobs needs a transplant he'll get it in no time at all. Such is the state of inequality in our American health system. When you're rich and famous, no waiting necessary.