John Kerry
In 2003, Senator John Kerry was in the running to become the first “cancer survivor” to be elected president, but he rejected the term as creating an “unfair stigma.” Kerry was diagnosed in 2002 after receiving his first exam in nearly two years.
Although a standard digital exam and an ultrasound test found no prostate abnormalities that might signal cancer, Kerry’s prostate specific antigen (PSA) test had risen by 70 percent. After receiving his diagnosis, Kerry thought about his father who died of prostate cancer in 2000 at age 85 and in 2003 opted to have the cancerous gland removed. “My dad had radiation, and I saw just how he lived at the end, and I didn’t want to go through that, “ Kerry said. In an interview later in 2003, Kerry announced he was cured. “I am cancer-free and the percentage of me being cancer free 10 years from now are about as good as they get,” Kerry said.
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