cancer Documentary on PBS This Week

Check your listings for Wednesday, April 16.

THE TRUTH ABOUT CANCER PREMIERES ON PBS APRIL 16, 2008

Emmy Award-Winning Filmmaker Linda Garmon Takes on the
Question "How Far
Have We Come in the War on Cancer?"

News Journalist and Cancer Survivor Linda Ellerbee
Hosts Post-Broadcast Panel Discussion

What is the truth about cancer? Is it the same deadly
killer it was 30 years
ago - or are we making progress? Find out through the
poignant stories of
patients battling the disease. Written, produced, and
directed by
award-winning filmmaker Linda Garmon, The Truth About
Cancer premieres
nationally on PBS Wednesday, April 16, at 9:00pm ET
(check local listings).
Comprised of a 90-minute documentary followed by a
30-minute panel
discussion, the two-hour broadcast event takes a deep
look inside the cancer
field gauging how far we have come in this decades-old
war and asking, "Why
does anyone still die of cancer?"

Part science, part personal catharsis, part
character-driven storytelling,
The Truth About Cancer is narrated by Garmon, who
tells the moving story of
her husband's battle with cancer. Over the course of
the film, Garmon
returns to the same Boston-area hospitals at which her
husband was treated,
and exposes startling truths about survival rates of
metastisized cancers,
and the limited success of drugs and clinical trials.
Interwoven throughout
are the stories of three additional cancer patients,
and their families and
doctors, as they navigate the deeply personal
decisions surrounding the
disease. The documentary also follows several medical
professionals working
to promote screening, research the latest developments
in cancer treatment,
and help patients and their families live with a
cancer diagnosis.

"This film makes it clear that it's very much a part
of American culture to
believe that if you fight hard enough, you can beat
cancer. But when it
comes to having metastatic cancer, your survival
depends on the biology of
your cancer cells, and whether they are susceptible to
state-of-the-art
treatment," says Garmon. "In sharing my husband's
story and the stories of
other patients, I hope to shed light on this important
truth."

The Truth About Cancer is the third installment of
PBS's Take One Step-a
campaign offering primetime programming and outreach
tools to help people
take the first step towards better health. Following
the 90-minute
documentary is a 30-minute panel discussion entitled
Take One Step: A
Conversation About Cancer with Linda Ellerbee. News
journalist and breast
cancer survivor Linda Ellerbee moderates the dialogue
featuring a panel of
doctors, all of whom are cancer survivors themselves.
Having sat on both
sides of a cancer diagnosis, the panel shares their
unique perspectives,
offering both personal and professional observations
on how to handle a
cancer diagnosis, what to say to loved ones, how to
advocate for yourself,
and how to best live your life, with cancer. Panelists
include U.S. News and
World Report health editor Dr. Bernadine Healy; breast
cancer surgeon and
Breast Cancer Research stamp mastermind Dr. Ernie
Bodai; neurologist and
leading palliative care expert Dr. Richard Payne; and
counseling
psychologist Dr. Paul Brenner.

The Truth About Cancer is a Carousel Films LLC

Anne