Do Apple Shareholders Deserve to Know More About Steve Jobs' Health?

From the start, Apple's PR machine has been vague about Steve Jobs' health, first dismissing rumors, then releasing a letter from Jobs about a "hormonal imbalance" that even doctors are having a hard time deciphering. Now even after Jobs announced that his health problems are more complex than he originally thought--and that he's taking himself out of the limelight--Apple fans, bloggers, and shareholders are still hungry for information. Should they (we) lay off?

Mitch Wagner of the thoughtful Apple Unvarnished blog thinks so. He disagrees with this NYT blogger who says Jobs doesn't have the same right to privacy as regular people, being that he's "the most important person at one of the most high-profile companies in America."

Says Wagner: "Apple and Jobs have already done the right thing by investors...certainly, free speech permits journalists and bloggers to write about celebrities' private lives...but the celebrities are under no obligation to cooperate." (He asserts that Jobs became a celebrity when "he told busybodies to buzz off when they wanted to pry into his medical condition.")

I would argue that Steve Jobs was already a celebrity. That aside, Jobs is Apple. Obviously, many shareholders and company analysts believe Apple's future hangs in the balance, so the prying isn't going to let up anytime soon.