Victim of circumstance? (Image: Sarah Hoskins for New Scientist)

Editorial: US health gaps shame us all

DEEP down, Diana Garmon-Spears knew something was seriously wrong when she noticed a lump in her right breast, about the size of a peanut. “I ignored it, but then my breast started to deform. I started to form a mass of lumps all around,” she recalls.

Two years later, she doesn’t expect doctors to cure her cancer, and has been forced to give up her office work. “I don’t think there’s any employer who’s going to understand you having chemo or radiation for 2 hours a day.” …