Jade Goody was a member of the "Big Brother-UK" house when she learned last August she had cervical cancer .  Since then, Great Britain has followed her public sorrows through treatments and, last week, finding out her cancer is terminal. The mother of two has now announced she will marry her boyfriend, have her two boys christened and sell the media rights to raise money for the boys.  A personal tragedy, Goody's story has led to an increase in cervical cancer screening in Britain, halting a decline in screening according to British health officials.  It's now called the Goody Effect .

Under the $787 billion dollar stimulus bill signed by President Obama on Tuesday, the National Institutes of Health will receive an extra $10 billion – a 34 percent increase that brings its budget to $39 billion. That increase includes $1.26 billion for research on cancer. Alot of the credit for the big pay day is being given to Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter, a two-time cancer survivor. Read the New York Times article about how he shepherded it through the dangerous thicket of money politics here .  (Free subscription is needed. You can use the cancerpage login. User ID: cancerpage PW:visitor.)

At the same time, Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) continue working on the 21^st Century Cancer ALERT (Access to Lifesaving Early detection, Research and Treatment) Act.  Read more about that here .

Helps to Talk about the Costs

As we told yuou last week, the American Association of Clinical Oncology has launched an online guide to help you plan for and deal with the costs of cancer care.  You can find that guide here. The LA Times reports this week about half of all personal bankruptcies are the result of medical debt, most  declared by people who have medical insurance.  Yet often physicians do not want to talk about the costs of cancer care. Read the story here.