When celebrities with medical issues get pharmaceutical endorsements I almost always mention that I have mixed feelings. It’s refreshing in that it comes across like a genuine partnership. It also feels like a company is using a popular face and a compelling story to sell a product (at a high price) for people in medical crisis. The FDA vets medication thoroughly and it’s a difficult, expensive process to get a drug approved. However companies also make small changes to drugs once there’s competition just to get a new patent and charge more.
That’s all preface to this story about actress Cobie Smulders, now 36 with two children, recounting her ovarian cancer experience at just 25. She was worried that her fertility would be affected, that she wouldn’t be able to have kids, and she also was frustrated at the lack of information online. This isn’t the first time Cobie has talked about this, she told Women’s Health about it in 2015. Cobie has been married to Taran Killam of SNL since 2012 and they have daughters Shaelyn, 9, and Joelle, 3. She’s now partnering with a company called Tesaro which has a maintenance drug for ovarian cancer called Zejula. It’s priced at upwards of $10,000 a MONTH. Medicare does cover it, although I read one complaint that it costs $3,500 a month with medicare until you meet the deductible. After that it’s $755 a month. Still not affordable for most. (An insider in the pharmaceutical insider told me the high cost may be due to the small population being treated along with the duration of intended treatment.) Here’s what she told People:
When Cobie Smulders was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she was just 25 years old and without a road map on how to get through it.
“It was a mess,” she tells PEOPLE. “I think it was messy mostly because I had a great fear of not being able to have kids. I’ve always been very maternal, I’ve always loved children and I’ve always wanted one of my own, and so having that not being option, especially at such a young age — kids were very much not on my mind at 25, but I still wanted them one day — it was really hard and it was a really depressing thing to go through.”
“I remember doing mad, crazy Google searches on my disease and trying to understand it better, and obviously I was talking to my doctors, but there wasn’t at the time and it was very bleak,” she says.
Smulders went into control mode, and tried everything under the sun to get her body back to health, from cutting out cheese and carbohydrates to yoga classes, acupuncture, crystal healers and more.
Thankfully, her surgeon was able to save enough of her ovaries — just one-third — for her to have two kids (“it was very small but mighty, apparently,” she says) and she has been in remission for nearly a decade.
Smulders resisted talking about her cancer for years, until she revealed her battle in a 2015 issue of Women’s Health.
“For me at the time, I just wanted to deal with it on my own and with my family,” she says now. “I wasn’t interested in sharing it with anybody. It doesn’t really benefit the world until now, when I can say, ‘this is what I went through and I survived it. These are the things I did and these are the things I learned and these are the things I can show you.’ Before it just felt like something I want to deal with myself.”
“There’s a statistic that 85 percent of women who had advanced ovarian cancer had a recurrence, and when you’re faced against those odds it’s a very terrifying place to be in,” she says. “I think for those women, it’s a great opportunity to have treatment options that weren’t available to me when I was going through my own cancer. It’s kind of a new day of more options and more awareness, and a place and a time where you can get more answers.”
If I had ovarian cancer I would want to be on a drug that had been clinically shown to quadruple the time before recurrence. (If I’m reading the wiki page for it accurately.) However I’m appalled at the cost, which seems so prohibitively high. The healthcare system in the US is just so broken and expensive that so many of us face the scary decision of getting treatment or going bankrupt. That issue looms for so many of us no matter how healthy we are now. A medical crisis for us or a family member could easily cost us our livelihoods.
As for Cobie I understand why she’s working with this company and I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. Medicine is a for-profit business and it’s big business. Even for something we consider so personal.
Also I just learned she’s Canadian. Lucky bitch.
photos credit: WENN
As a non-american this makes my skin crawl. Medicine for profit is morally bankrupt and should be completely socialised in my opinion. Even though it is not fully socialised here, we are not hammered with commercials for medications and I am so thankful that it is, so that there is a chance for physician led choice and advice, not just another marketing campaign. Everything is a commodity these days it is so sad.
Exactly. No country should consider itself free when its citizens have to pay to live.
Yeah, I always feel icky about it. In Australia it is illegal for prescription medicines to be directly advertised. The most they can do is a general health ad – so if a company has heart medicines they can make a general ad about heart health and what symptoms to look out for and then say that if you’re worried you should see your doctor. That’s it. Then the doctors absolutely do NOT make money off prescribing certain drugs – that is so effed up. There is a charge to the patient (or govt, depending on how they bill) for writing out a prescription that is a flat rate. The doctors will often tell you about cheaper options re what they have prescribed (and the pharmacist always will). When I go to the States and see ads for prescription drugs it really freaks me out. It just feels so wrong. And I cannot believe doctors get more money for prescribing certain drugs. Drug companies can seemingly also essentially bribe doctors to prescribe more. So effed up!
Excuse my questions: I am German and our health system is not perfect but they would Pay for such medicin. We wouldn’t know the price. What Happens in the us, when someone is not able to Pay it?
They let them die?
Yes, they would die. It happens here every day, even with the improvements under Obamacare.
What a backwards country. Y’all should get your act together.
That’s so bonkers. Health care is a human right, it shouldn’t be reserved for the wealthy! Sorry, I’m Canadian and the whole for-profit healthcare scheme makes my blood boil, especially since conservatives have been wanting to chip away at our universal healthcare for decades
NO, they get the medication, then are bankrupt. People admitted and treated everyday in hispital that will never pay.
They would die, or (more likely) they would have their ovaries removed, which is probably the treatment that would be covered by insurance. Cobie was lucky to be able to keep hers (being Canadian and also wealthy), but middle class and poor Americans would just have to have them removed and sacrifice the dream of having biological children.
Exactly what happened to a family member. The choice was between crazy expensive drugs or a complete hysterectomy, which was covered by insurance. She went with the hysterectomy because the drugs would have bankrupted her. Either way, I won’t be able to have kids, she said.
Yes, they would die and they do die, as Boppity said. One of my sons has type 1 diabetes and will rely on insulin every day for the rest of his life. Recently a young man died because he had been rationing his insulin because he was having trouble paying for it. That is my biggest fear for my son. He is a pre-existing condition and if the GOP has their way I don’t know how he’ll get coverage. Or be able to afford it if he does.
That is terrifying, I’m so sorry. Your health care System terrifies me and makes me so glad that I am Canadian.
This is so cruel. As a society, you have to help weaker people. Darwin sucks – it’s Not survival of the fittest. It’s humanity.
@Tschic
Darwin doesn’t suck, his theory of evolution was just never supposed to be applied to society. It explains how organisms evolve in their environment, not how people are supposed to care for another.
Thanks all, and I know. The GOP callously says that if people would just take better care of themselves they’d have no need for healthcare. If my son, who has all the resources to have lived a healthy life, still got hit with a lifelong, fatal disease at age 16 (which isn’t lifestyle related, btw), imagine all those with few to no resources are able to survive. So many of them do not. It’s a travesty.
My son is a TD1 as well and I am forever grateful that we live in Canada. TD1 is so misunderstood. My son was 14 when he was diagnosed – there is no lifestyle change he could make to change his diagnosis. Even in a single payer health care system we have to pay for certain things and there is a deductible with insurance for insulin. Despite all of that, I can not imagine my stress level if we were living in the states.
My son has type one diabetes and was diagnosed at age four. There is a lot of misinformation and you’re of course right, it’s not lifestyle related. But i really hate that people who have more preventable diseases are judged so harshly. Not by you. Just saying it’s something i’ve noticed. I live in california in a pretty health conscious part of the state but almost everybody has done or does something that isn’t optimal for their health. It’s just human nature. And WHEW type 1 diabetes is a long haul as a parent. We are still adjusting. And the healthcare system is insane. I HAVE insurance and probably have to spend 15,000 a year on insurance and medical bills. It’s So stressful and stupid. We are being lead by such idiots it’s unreal.
Darwin never ever in his lifetime said anything about “survival of the fittest”, that is a common misconception of what natural selection entails. The philosopher Herbert Spender said it. It is survival of those most adaptable to their environment.
We have politicians that liken socialized medicine to enslaving doctors. Obviously, it is not that way, but our loons are especially crazy. Not that he believes that, he just says it to his base and they lap it up like kittens with milk. Our leaders only care about making rich people and companies richer
As I recall, Rand Paul, himself a physician, was one of the people who said that. He knows better, but why tell the truth when you can sell a line? Gross.
I also read a study that many seniors are against Medicare For All because they believe the lies that if more people have Medicare benefits, THEIR benefits will be reduced. It is such a sad example of people being fed lies, and choosing to hog everything for themselves instead of looking into the facts of the matter.
No, the combination of the pharmaceutical company and social programs would help to pay for the drug.
Anything that prolongs life for what was a diagnosis with a poor prognosis for such a long time is a good thing.
Yes. Cancer is scary but ovarian cancer has always seemed extra scary to me in how deadly it seems to be in comparison to other forms of it.
Because it is silent, you can’t see the body part and symptoms often don’t appear until it has metastasized
Lightpurple, that is the really scary thing. The symptoms are very minimal and not striking, so early detection is difficult. I don’t think there are tests for it, as there are for cervical cancer. I get an ultra sound of my ovaries every once in while because of possible high risk for undiscovered/unknown BRCA, but it really isn’t a reliable way to screen.
Good – bringing awareness is a good thing.
I love Cobie and how she is in almost all marvel movies without being in people’s face…
Only those who are over 65 or have been determined to be disabled by the Social Security Administration, which is a difficult standard, are eligible for Medicare. And for that disabled population, Medicare only kicks in 24 months after the disability determination.
Each individual state would determine whether this was part of its formulary for Medicaid.
Exactly. This drug is unlikely to help young working women of childbearing age simply because most would never be able to afford it.
Even though she is Canadian if she doesn’t live her regularly she doesn’t get covered under the health care (has to pay taxes). So she would have paid for everything through the American system. Its so scary.
How can it be seen as acceptable and justifiable that bankruptcy is an acceptable side effect of cancer?
I was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer a few years ago while I was unemployed. I was on Medicaid at the time (I had no choice) and it paid for everything. When open enrollment started with the new Obamacare plans, I immediately signed up for the most expensive option, because I needed additional surgery 4 months after the first, on a different area of my body. The hospital I was about to have the 2nd surgery in told me 2 days before they did not accept “marketplace” plans, aka Obamacare plans. However, they COULD take my credit card and charge the surgery. Yes, you read that right. When I asked how much it would cost to have a full hysterectomy and 1 night’s lodging, they replied “$35,000.” This country’s healthcare system is definitely broken and f***’d up. I was able to enroll in a different health plan which the hospital DID accept, and paid for nothing again, thank GOD but WTF? I lost my breasts, was about to lose all of my reproductive organs, and needed to worry about charging that on my credit card? It is a disgrace.
I’m so sorry you had to go through that fear. I’m glad you ended up not having to pay for it, which is how it should be.
YEARS AGO….I worked in a sub-acute rehab center for stroke victims, which was a Medicare/Medicaid facility…and THEY WERE SO DIRTY…that they would PURPOSELY deny patients access to care if their meds cost too much (less money to put BACK in their filthy pockets)…OH…and if the patients didn’t have top-tier insurance WITH supplemental insurance…(which was SO AGAINST THE LAW BECAUSE THEY WERE A MEDICARE/MEDICAID FACILITY)
Oh…
And if you were Black or Brown….
That’s where I began my necessary, yet HORRIFIC education on how messed up healthcare is in this country….the cost of so many life saving drugs…and what the government ALLOWS big pharma to charge patients needing those drugs just to LIVE!
And it’s only gotten worse…because back in the day…Insulin BARELY cost anything…now the costs are so exorbitant…folks are DYING everyday because they can’t afford their meds
Yes, sigh. Greed and evil truly knows no bounds.
Oh Esmom, you said a mouthful! Greed and evil know no boundaries. We need boundaries in place, because no longer can we rely on compassionate, humanitarian care in our own countries. When money is on the table, caring about human suffering (cause it’s not them) goes out the window. We don’t all have golden opportunities to “make something of ourselves” and to blame us for that is the most gaslighting experience of them all.
If you think about it, the level of cruelty it requires to be ok with people dying because they can’t afford health care isn’t that much of a stretch to being a supporter of what the orange monster says on a daily basis. A lot of the American mythos is linked to the belief that being rich means you are smart and good and that poor people and dumb and lazy and deserve to not get certain things that other countries view as fundamental for life. This completely ignores the structural inequalities in place from the creation of the country as well as the institutional racism and sexism that is a part of the society.
This is why I roll my eyes at the people who go on about American exceptionalism. The exceptional part is not anything good but in fact quite inhumane.
And to the extent we may be “exceptional” in some cases – at what cost? To achieve out of sheer terror over the alternative is not a positive experience.
So well said, Nic919. I totally agree.
I just don’t think advertising for prescription medications should be legal at all. There should be some huge free database online run by the FDA, and doctors are better-trained to be familiar with more of them.
It’s illegal to advertise prescription drugs in Canada… sort of. You can advertise the name of a medication, but not its use. It leads to some super weird advertisements with happy shiny people dancing around but no indication of what whatever drug they are so happy about does.
That’s how it used to be in the US. I used to work in the industry when we could only market drugs to doctors, not to consumers directly. FDA regulations on direct to consumer ads really started loosening up in the late 90s, leading to the massive flood of drug ads we currently have. It’s pretty crazy now, imo.
I do not want to make people feel bad by sharing my story. But my country (Canada) is mocked for its social welfare history and universal healthcare system by US Republicans. I do not get it.
My husband, at the age of 40, was diagnosed within the span of three months with CLL (a form of leukaemia) and a heart condition that required the implementation of a pacemaker. He has gone through one course of chemotherapy, and is on track to be “cured” in his case study group. My mother has advanced Alzheimer’s. I have two children.
We have stress, bad days, good days. But I have never lost a second of sleep over whether or not we could afford to look after ourselves. Never had to take the least expensive care, never denied a procedure, a course of treatment. No deductibles, no co-pays. Our coverage does not hinge on our employment. We pay every cent of our taxes, without a hesitation.
How could anyone in the US ever argue that this doesn’t work!? That our quality of life is undesirable? That we are deluded?
I am so sad for at least half of the US population that craves for change, yet strikes brick wall after brick wall. Because… well, I simply have no answer.
Strength, neighbours.
Americans have been lied to by the right – many of them genuinely believe that universal healthcare will result in “death panels” and the government denying people expensive treatments and choosing their doctors. They also believe it would raise their taxes – which might be true, but if we gave up our astronomical military spending, we could afford it without raising taxes.
If it ran like Canada, Americans would love it and never want to give it up. Politicians just don’t want to disentangle health care from for-profit businesses (that get them elected and provide them with nice perks) and they don’t want to cut military funding because again – business make huge profits on our military.
Thank you for sharing – I am also Canadian and have a mom with a chronic debilitating illness. Without universal health care, I have no doubt that she would have died a long time ago. last week she celebrated her 70th birthday. There are enough worries with you are dealing will illness, but we have never once had to worry about paying for her expensive surgeries or treatment and for that I am so grateful to my country.
I think its important to actually give first hand accounts of how the single payer system works in Canada since there is SO much misinformation in the US.
5 years ago I found a lump in my breast at 28 years old. My first surgery was booked immediately and I paid $0 out of pocket. I had to have a second surgery, which was again booked immediately. Again, $0 out of pocket expense. Well, I did pay for parking at the hospital….
I had a baby 2 years ago. I was billed $10 to upgrade to a private room, but my medical insurance through work covered it.
Is the system perfect? Absolutely not. There are wait times for procedures considered elective or non-emergent (joint replacements generally have long waits, MRIs in non emergencies, etc), but those wait times allow for serious conditions to be immediately treated.
And, while our taxes are high, they aren’t as high as commonly believed based on conversations I’ve had with American friends. Our top marginal tax rate is high (nearing 50% in many provinces), BUT, that rate applies on only the amount earned over $150,000. No one in Canada is taxed a straight 50%.
I was 22 when I was told I was sterile. I was 25 the first time I was told I had Ovarian Cancer at 27 I had a complete hysterectomy. At the age of 31 I had ovarian cancer for the 2nd time as a tiny piece of ovary was overlooked. I’ve been cancer free since then thank goodness. I have never been able to get life insurance and I was never so grateful as when pre-exsisting conditions could no longer count against you or an insurance drop you due to cap. I have never been more nervous about my health problems as I am now (im 53) With Trump and this administration threatening to overturn the very things that protect people like me..
My husband is a hospice and palliactive care nurse. Without him spending two to three hours A DAY on the phone with doctors, nurses, our attorney handling my stepdad’s Medicaire application (which has been going on for MONTHS because they try everything they can to not accept you) etc, my stepdad would not be alive. That means he’s up at 6 am to call all these people in Florida as we live in California and he has to go to work.
Last month my parents received a bill for $20,000 for an antibiotic he received in the hospital after his last surgery after being told that OF COURSE IT’S COVERED BY INSURANCE. We refused to pay. The pharmacy said if the bill isn’t paid, they’ll cut off his other life-sustaining medications completely. (Please reread that line. Yes, it’s accurate.) My husband said “Go ahead” and found another more appropriate pharmacy. Now the nursing home is involved in fighting this bill because it was partly their error.
Without my husband’s advocacy, I wouldn’t know where to start. He speaks the language of medicine and healthcare. It’s a disgrace. The average person wouldn’t have a clue.
I am currently battling ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer. One bag of Carboplatin 22,000.00. I took 3 chemotherapy agents each visit, not including Neulasta injections which are 11,000.00 per injection. I did 6 rounds. Not including labs, oncologist visits, CT scans,ultrasounds, specialist visits with nephrologist, urologist and internal medicine. Had total hysterectomy with bso, ended up in intensive care for 2 weeks, lost part of my colon and now have a ileostomy. Had to learn to walk again due to hospital Deconditioning. To be told well odds are it will come back. But…my point is that we need more awareness not just for breast cancer but for ovarian cancer also. Get tested especially genetic testing if anyone in family has any cancer history. Be vigilant with your health. Force Drs to listen and not blow you off. Ovarian mimics irritable bowel. It’s usually found in late stage. Sorry to be on a soap box. It’s not glamorous. Cancer is horrible.
I’m so sorry for what you are going through, Southernbelle. I wish you a complete recovery.
I am an American living in Canada. My $7 tube of rosacea creme would be $50 in the US. The markups are insane! Everyone wants lower taxes at the expense of one’s health.
Mexican health system is not that great either. Even if we don’t pay for medicins or surgical procedures it takes a long time to be treated and scheduled for any procedure. Most people like myself, would rather go to a private clinic or hospital to be treated and we end up paying a lot of money either way. All of this talking form a middle class to upper class person.
People with low income aren’t able to pay for private care so they end up waiting months to have their prpcedure and if they are critical, sometimes they end up dying or having complications along the way. Yes, some countries may have free healthcare but the lack of hospitals and the great number of ill people make it difficult to give a good service.
I had terrible stomach pains last weekend. But I was so worried about going to an “out of network” hospital if I called 911. I still took the time doubled over in pain to find a hospital online near me in network and take an Uber. I had gallbladder surgery that night. Even disoriented i was worried about the costs. This is what this healthcare system has done to us.
I do think that it is bad that she is shilling for them. Everyone else has already covered the ethical blight that is privatized medicine. As a Canadian, she should know better. I think less of every celebrity that “partners” with Big Pharma. I’d rather see them do a clothing or makeup campaign, and those are terrible too.