Does anyone know how the media treated rumors of John Kennedy’s Addison’s disease in 1960? I read somewhere that it was mentioned but JFK wouldn’t release his medical records so people could tell for sure. The result was voters elected a man who could have died at any time. His condition wasn’t confirmed until long after his death.
What about FDR’s final term, he was so sick that Stalin rolled him at Yalta and Stalin got what ever he wanted. If FDR had ANY patriotism left in his he should have NEVER ran for the 4th term.
Actually, Kennedy's people and the doctors flat-out lied:
John F. Kennedy has not, nor has he ever, had an ailment described classically as Addison's disease, which is tuberculous destruction of the adrenal gland. Any statement to the contrary is malicious and false. ... In the post-war period he had some mild adrenal insufficiency and this is not in any way a dangerous condition. And it is possible that even this might be corrected over the years since ACTH stimulation tests for adrenal function was [sic] considered normal in 1958. Doctors have stated that this condition might have arisen out of his wartime experiences of shock and malaria.
Lyndon Johnson's people knew about Kennedy and Addison's and spread the rumor to the media.
Kennedy was actually one of the (anonymous, unnamed) case histories in an article on Addison's in the Journal of the American Medical Asociation. But when the campaign and the doctors issued a flat denial, the digging stopped.
Even now, when a candidate "releases his medical records" it's not necessarily the doctor's notes and prescription records that are released. Probably it's more like a summary of basic information.