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Why Sudders didn't lose his battle with cancer

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William Crawley | 16:23 UK time, Thursday, 21 August 2008

I've been reading some of the accounts of Adrian Sudsbury's passing in today's papers. Quite rightly, there is universal praise for this young jounalist's campaigning spirit and his efforts, in his last months, to provoke a debate about how we can save more lives in the future by moving to an opt-out approach to organ donation. It's unfortunate, however, that The Daily Telegraph chose to run with the headline "Sudders the blogger loses cancer fight". Anyone familiar with Sudders's story must know that the word "lose" does not apply in his case. Nor does it apply, in fact, in the story of anyone who dies following a cancer disgnosis. Like many journalists, I've received e-mails over the years from campaign groups asking us to avoid this kind of language when writing about cancer. This is not merely an example of political correctness on their part; it is an effort to overturn a common perception that some people dealing with a cancer diagnosis are winners and some are losers. That perception can place cancer patients under yet more pressure -- a pressure to 'perform', to meet others' expectations.

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