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- THE WEEK, Page 24HEALTH & SCIENCEThe Disease J.F.K. Tried to Keep Secret
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- Doctors confirm rumors of the President's adrenal-gland problems
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- During the 1960 presidential campaign, rumors surfaced that
- candidate John F. Kennedy was suffering from Addison's disease,
- an incurable, potentially fatal deterioration of the adrenal
- glands. If true, the information could have influenced the
- outcome of what ended up being a very tight election. But
- Kennedy denied it, and the press, as it would later do with
- other unsavory talk about the Kennedy clan, let the matter rest.
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- Now an article in the Journal of the American Medical
- Association has finally set the record straight. According to
- the author, Journal editor George Lundberg, one of the
- pathologists who assisted at the President's 1963 autopsy has
- confirmed that Kennedy's adrenal glands, which normally sit atop
- the kidneys, were nowhere to be found. Lundberg has also
- confirmed that someone described only as "Case 3 . . . a man 37
- years of age," treated for Addison's disease in 1954 at the
- Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, was in fact
- Kennedy. Although Addison's is incurable, it is fully treatable,
- and was in the 1950s. But people are very touchy about the
- health problems of potential Presidents. If the story had been
- confirmed 32 years ago, Richard Nixon might have taken office
- a lot sooner.
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