Angelina Jolie reveals she had her ovaries removed to prevent cancer


Angelina Jolie said in an opinion article published Tuesday at The New York Times that she had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed to prevent cancer.
The surgery last week came two years after the actress underwent a preventative double mastectomy. A blood test had found that Jolie, who lost her mother, grandmother, and an aunt to cancer, had a gene mutation giving her an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer.
"I know my children will never have to say, 'Mom died of ovarian cancer,'" Jolie wrote.
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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