ON THE OTHER HAND, THEY DON'T COUNT AS BREAST CANCER DEATHS!:

"As many of you know, five years ago, I beat breast cancer," said a shaky Robin Roberts on Good Morning America Monday morning. "Sometimes treatment for cancer can lead to other serious medical issues and that's what I'm facing right now."

Clutching George Stephanopolos's hand on the sofa next to her, Roberts announced that she has myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a relatively rare blood disease that Roberts herself said she'd never heard of until she was diagnosed with it. Likely even more unfamiliar for many viewers than the name of her condition was Robert's startling remark that cancer treatment can result in other serious health problems,  including different forms of cancer,  several years after the initial cancer is in remission.

But in the medical world, it has been known for decades that cancer treatment carries with it the risk of causing another kind of cancer to develop. "We always think of the drug as a double-edged sword, where there is a benefit from the drug and there is a harm from the drug," says Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. "It's actually one of the reasons why I'm one of the folks who's been very outspoken about being conservative and only using chemotherapy when we absolutely need chemotherapy."

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