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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Maura Tierney Partners with Amgen

Actress Maura Tierney played a nurse and a doctor on the long-running popular television drama “ER” for 10 years. But she didn’t know a thing about breast cancer and chemo when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of the disease in 2009. “I was scared,” she recently told the U.K. newspaper The Daily Mail. Now the 47-year-old Emmy-nominated actress wants to make sure others have their facts straight about both the disease and the treatment — especially the treatment. She is teaming up with Thousand Oaks-based Amgen Inc. for the awareness campaign “Chemotherapy: Myths or Facts” to help cancer patients and their caregivers understand what’s involved in the treatment. “When I was going through my cancer treatment, I learned that you can never ask a stupid question,” Tierney said in a statement. “I asked every single question that came to my mind, and I believe that helped to calm my own anxiety.” The campaign will encourage patients and their caregivers to ask questions and arm themselves with information. It will seek to debunk common misconceptions associated with chemo, such as the myth that all patients receiving treatment should avoid spending time with friends and family. Some 650,000 patients undergo chemo in the U.S., according to Amgen, which has several cancer therapies in its pipeline. And since 2002, the company has had FDA approval to sell Neulasta, which helps fight infection in patients undergoing chemo. Tierney was diagnosed in 2009 when her physician found a small lump in her breast. She had a mastectomy, followed by chemo. The diagnosis came just a year after she quit “ER” after 10 seasons. The diagnosis led her to leave the cast of the show “Parenthood” before the show began shooting. After her recovery, she returned to “Rescue Me” and is slated to have a regular role on the CBS hit “The Good Wife” playing alongside former ER colleague Julianna Margulies. An Amgen video featuring Tierney’s battle with cancer will be part of the chemo campaign. It will travel across the country as part of a video booth collecting and recording the personal stories of patients and caregivers who have had their own experience with myths and facts they have uncovered during their experience.

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