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TIME - Man of the Year
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1993-04-08
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THE WEEK, Page 24HEALTH & SCIENCEThe Disease J.F.K. Tried to Keep Secret
Doctors confirm rumors of the President's adrenal-gland problems
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.
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.