not seem to gain momentum. Just last week, Jane Fonda admitted to a 30-year battle with anorexia nervosa and bulimia on a special on the disorder which appeared on CNN. Singer Anne Murray has spoken openly about the battle to help her daughter recover from anorexia nervosa (Moreno, 2002).
Celebrity campaigns against diseases are very high-profile media events. Twenty years ago, there was only an Alzheimer's Association, but with celebrity campaigns, there is now an Alzheimer's Foundation of America (Jackson, 2005). It received a tremendous boost when it was disclosed that Ronald Reagan had the disease, and when he died in 2004, there was a 60 percent jump in hits on its website. It has also attracted such celebrities as Barbra Streisand, Shelley Fabares, David Hyde Pierce and Leeza Gibbons. Having a celebrity talk about a disease or admit to having it makes it easier for others to open up about it.
Breast cancer has been endorsed by such distinguished ladies as Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and first ladies Betty Ford and Nancy Reagan (Jackson, 2005). Other celebrities speaking out on breast cancer include Gloria Steinham, the feminist activist and founder of Ms. Magazine, and singer Patti LaBelle, and even actor Richard Roundtree of "Shaft" fame, who fought his own battle with breast cancer. However, Dr. Barron H. Lerner, a medical historian, noted recently that the coming forward of Betty Ford and bringing a previously un-talked of subject into the public eye was a positive thing, but when her daughter, Susan Ford Vance, began advising women to have annual mammograms beginning at age 35, it was an erroneous recommendation. She was backed at the time by the American Cancer Society, but it later withdrew the recommendation because it had no scientific basis (Napoli, 2000). Dr. Allen, of the Agency for Health Care Research, warned that the increased number of cancer screenings following celebrity appeals ...