Cancer Survivors in Germany Push for a 'Right to Be Forgotten'
German politicians who beat cancer say old diagnoses are still costing former patients loans, adoptions and insurance
By Solomon "Customs" Bridges
A cancer diagnosis, cleared and years behind you, should not follow you into a bank office. That is the argument now being pressed in Berlin by a group of German politicians who are themselves cancer survivors.
They are backing a policy known as the "right to be forgotten," which would bar insurers, lenders and adoption agencies from holding a past cancer diagnosis against someone who has since been declared free of the disease. Campaigners say the discrimination is widespread and touches an estimated 5.5 million people in Germany — former patients who have a clean bill of health but still find doors closed to them.
The idea is not new to Europe. Several countries, including France, have already written similar protections into law, generally letting survivors stop disclosing their medical history to insurers after a set number of years in remission. German advocates argue their country is lagging, and that the gap has real consequences: a mortgage denied, an adoption application stalled, a life-insurance policy priced out of reach — years after the disease itself is gone.
[This report draws on a single source, the Guardian; the specific legislative proposal and its timeline for a parliamentary vote were not detailed in the material available and should be confirmed.]
A law like this would not cure anyone. But it would decide whether the paperwork keeps punishing people long after the doctors have stopped.
Nothing happens 'over there' anymore.
— Compiled from reporting by The Guardian.
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