This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
Six years ago, I was diagnosed with a rare, inoperable form of bone cancer called chondrosarcoma, a cancer I still have to this day.
Elizabeth Finch used to be a writer on the popular medical tv show Grey's Anatomy.
Other writers said they deferred to her opinions while writing episodes, since as a cancer patient, she was the authority on what patients were going through.
All told, my cancer cost me my hair, my immune system, one knee, half my bank account, half my thirties, and one functioning kidney.
I may never be cancer free, but.
In a December 2022 interview with the Ankler, a newsletter about goings on in Hollywood, Elizabeth Finch admitted that her cancer diagnosis was a lie.
One of her colleagues told the newsletter that Elizabeth Finch was someone who sported a visible chemoport bandage, who regularly took breaks to vomit, who only ate saltines for long periods of time, and who wrote and talked about her experiences all the time.
We were unable to reach Elizabeth Finch for a response.
Her story may seem extraordinary, but she's not alone in making false claims.
In 2021, the website intelligent.com surveyed more than 1200 white college applicants.
More than a quarter of the respondents on the online survey said they had lied about being a racial minority on their college application.
Blanca Villa Gomez is the website's higher education counselor.
She says that most of the people who lied claim to be native american.
And we found that the number one reason for why these applicants lied was they believed that it would improve their chances of getting accepted.
It used to be that we tried our best to conceal disadvantages, hardships, and humiliations.
Traumas were often experienced as shameful and hidden away.
In fact, in previous centuries, historians have documented numerous cases of people who were the target of discrimination, who did their best to avoid the labels that would invite prejudice.
Many people of color try to pass.