On 14 May 2013 actress Angelina Jolie published an article in the New York Times about her decision to have a double mastectomy. Jolie had lived for years under the shadow of breast cancer, as both her mother and grandmother died of it at a relatively early age. Jolie herself did a genetic test that confirmed she was carrying a dangerous mutation of the BRCA1 gene. According to recent statistical surveys, women carrying this mutation have an 87 per cent probability of developing breast cancer.
