Infertility Advocate Giuliana Rancic Announces She Has Breast Cancer

Posted by: Barbara Collura at October 17, 2011
Category: The Family Act of 2011

Barbara Collura

Several of the RESOLVE Board Members and staff are in Orlando, Florida, this week attending the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Annual Meeting. Medical professionals and researchers from around the world are here sharing news and information related to reproductive medicine.

This morning, we planned to head to the conference to stand in our booth and share with others all the work that RESOLVE does. Instead, we’re talking about the news that Giuliana Rancic shared on the TODAY Show this morning: Giuliana bravely announced that she has breast cancer.

Giuliana and Bill Rancic have been amazing voices for the infertility community. Over the past few years, they have shared their personal journey to parenthood on their reality show “Giuliana & Bill”. Today they shared that their journey has taken a difficult turn, but ultimately they feel that the IVF process and their future baby have saved Giuliana’s life. Their Reproductive Endocrinologist urged Giuliana to get a mammogram prior to this IVF cycle as a part of their pre-IVF work-up. If she had proceeded with the IVF and achieved pregnancy, the cancer would have gone undetected and put Giuliana at increased risk for a later stage cancer.

RESOLVE is proud to be supporting and advocating for The Family Act of 2011 which includes a provision that those diagnosed with cancer can use the tax credit to help with their out of pocket costs to preserve their fertility prior to undergoing cancer treatments. Couples like Giuliana and Bill who are facing cancer and hoping to be parents should not also have to worry about their finances on top of everything else. Help pass the Family Act so that everyone has a chance at parenthood.

Barbara Collura is the Executive Director for RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association. She can be reached at bcollura@resolve.org or 703.556.7172.