Beth Brophy is a mother, journalist, author and breast cancer survivor who blogs with humor, anger and intelligence about the issues of cancer. In The Blame Game, she features a health column written by Jane Brody, who wonders at the assumptions of blame some people make when they hear of a cancer diagnosis. Brody, a health expert who lives a healthy lifestyle based on the information she writes about, was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago. "It seems that many people believe that if you do everything right -- which is not to say that I did everything right, just most things -- bad things won't happen. But bad things can and do happen. And they happen to the best and the worst of us."

Brophy wonders about the same idea about disease. In her blog she writes, "Some people seem to want to blame you for your bad choices when you afflicted with a random illness. It seems to give other people, the unafflicted, the illusion that they have some control over fate. If someone has lung cancer, the first question is always: Did he or she smoke? If someone has breast cancer: Is that person overweight, or is there a family history of the disease? Yet countless studies have shown that in most cases, these factors may be entirely beside the point."

Brophy is being kind when she suggests the motivation for blaming others for their disease is a self-protective mechanism to comfort the healthy in giving them an illusionary sense of control over fate. I believe it is more arrogant and sinister that that, and reveals a profound lack of compassion. When my son was young, he asked me how people were able to do mean things to other people. I told him, like the Grinch of Dr. Seuss, there are hearts that grow bitterly dark and shrivel in size from a lack of love for themselves and others.