This Is Speculation

I’m inundated with email from readers telling me that Bloomberg is reporting that Steve Jobs is having his pancreas removed. This is not so.

What Bloomberg has published is idle speculation from doctors who have never even met Jobs, let alone examined him, that maybe he needs to have his pancreas removed, and that if so, the most likely reason would be a recurrence of pancreatic cancer. Not one person in this Bloomberg story claims any familiarity with Jobs, his current condition, or even with Apple. Compare and contrast with yesterday’s Times story, where the two sources were identified as people familiar with the treatment Jobs is currently undergoing, both of whom stated that he is being treated for an inability to absorb nutrients from food, and not for a recurrence of cancer.

Maybe Jobs’s pancreas is doing just fine. Maybe it is riddled with tumors and he’s having it removed right now, as I type this. I don’t know. But neither does Bloomberg, or the doctors they’ve quoted. And yet thanks to their “reporting”, there are now untold thousands of people who now believe it is a fact that his pancreas is being removed.

★ Thursday, 15 January 2009