Desperate Housewives: “Lung Cancer is NOT Just a Smoker’s Cancer”

>>> This blog entry was written by Jennifer Windrum.
>>> It was originally published on her blog, WTF:  Where's the Funding (for Lung Cancer)

Believe it or not, you will actually hear a little known, but big fact about lung cancer, on a hit prime time television show this Sunday night.

The words will go by very quickly, as Desperate Housewives character Mrs. McCluskey, played by Kathryn Joosten, celebrates the fact that her lung cancer surgery was successful.

On Sunday night’s episode (ABC 9:00 p.m.) McCluskey will say to party-goers, “People think you have to smoke to get lung cancer. But you don’t.”

So, what’s the big deal? Well, lung cancer, the nation’s number one cancer killer, has struck fictional Wisteria Lane for real.

Just ask ABC’s Desperate Housewives producer Jamie Gorenberg.

Jamie’s mom, Caren Gorenberg, a vibrant 67-year-old mother of four, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006, caused by an apparent genetic mutation.

Caren’s story isn’t an exception, as more than 60% of all new lung cancer cases are diagnosed in never smokers or former smokers, many of whom quit decades ago.

Caren says when she first went to the Internet, she didn’t find much encouraging news. “Everything seemed to say, ‘If you get this, you die,’” says Caren.

She says her daughter is “a walking font of knowledge about this disease and has been tireless in her efforts to make my life better and more understandable.” Caren says Jamie serves as her personal researcher and information conduit.

While contacting research institutions and doctors across the globe, Jamie discovered the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation. She and her mother attended the foundation’s gala fundraiser in November.

Guess who else was at the gala? Jamie’s Desperate Housewives colleague, Kathryn Joosten, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2001.

Joosten is one celebrity who is brave enough to speak publicly about lung cancer and the fact that she has it.

And, like Jamie, she’s on a mission to educate the facts about lung cancer and erase the stigma attached to it.

When the disease recurred in September 2009, Joosten broke the news to her supportive Housewives producers and encouraged them to put the issue in her story line.

So, with the help of Jamie, the duo pulled it off, with Mrs. McCluskey, quickly announcing on the show’s February 28th episode that doctors found a spot on her lung.

While lung cancer plays only a smidge of a role in this season’s show, it DID make the story line. That’s what counts.

Lung cancer continues to be the number one cancer killer and THE least funded in dollars per death of the four major cancers:  Breast, prostate, colon and lung.

“The most important ’sound byte’ in the episode — and the part I am proud of as a writer — is that Kathryn and I prevailed in making sure that (in the short reference made to lung cancer) we focused on the fact that lung cancer is NOT just a smokers’ cancer, says Gorenberg. “That is the line that Kathryn says in the party scene. And that’s what I am glad we were able to communicate to the public — even in the comedic context in which it occurs.”