Written by: Alex Green
Craig MacGregor, the long-serving bassist for Foghat has died.
The Iowa-born MacGregor was felled by lung cancer.
He was 68.
An accomplished musician who got his start on drums, MacGregor played in the Connecticut outfit Swan before joining the Foghat fold back in 1976, when he replaced Nick Jameson.
MacGregor made his debut on the Night Shift record and played with Foghat until 1982. He returned several times over the course of the band’s reformations and up until recently had been recording and playing live with them again.
On their Facebook page, Foghat wrote: “On behalf of Craig MacGregor’s family and the Foghat family, it is with great sadness that we are letting you know that we have lost our brother, good friend, husband, father and band mate this morning. He passed peacefully in his wife, Lisa MacGregor’s arms after a prolonged battle with cancer. Please respect the privacy of the family and band members at this time. We will be sharing information in the next day or so. Rest in Peace Thunderfingers.”
MacGregor had been diagnosed with lung cancer in 2012 after a fall sent him to the emergency room and X-Rays were taken, but he wasn’t told of his diagnosis until three years later. By the time the news was delivered, the bad news was threefold: the cancer had grown seven times its original size, it was declared to have advanced to Stage IV and it was deemed inoperable.
“No news is not always good news,” his wife Lisa told The Morning Call back in 2016.
Frustrated by this lack of transparency and of vital information being kept from patients, MacGregor became a vocal supporter of The Patient Test Results Information Act, which, according to the Pennsylvania State Assembly is, “An Act providing for summaries or copies of patient test results to be sent directly to a patient or the patient’s designee when there is a finding of a significant abnormality; and providing for duties of the Department of Health.”
In an Op Ed piece, Lisa MacGregor wrote: “According to a recent study, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the US, behind heart disease and cancer. Thousands of lives a year are lost due to improper reporting of test results. The problem exists across the country, and hits people from all walks of life. While there are many laws to protect patient rights, mistakes still happen, communication breakdowns occur, patients fall through the cracks, and coordination of care, is, well, not always coordinated. In fact, failure to communicate abnormal or critical test results turns out to be one of the leading causes of medical misdiagnosis. This bill will provide a much-needed safety net, helping to ensure that we learn about any critical findings while they are still relevant.”
