Posted on 04/07/2005 1:52:05 PM PDT by Hillary's Lovely Legs
Peter Jennings' lung cancer, which he disclosed Tuesday on ABC World News Tonight, may be in an advanced stage, a local expert on the disease says.
Most patients don't have their conditions diagnosed until the cancer is "so advanced that it can't be cured by surgery, and the patient has a poor chance of long-term survival," says Rita Axelrod of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's Kimmel Center.
Details of Jennings' condition haven't been disclosed, but his hoarse voice and the fact that he isn't having surgery immediately "suggests he could be in at least stage III" of lung cancer, says Axelrod, director of pulmonary medical oncology.
In stage III, life expectancy for lung-cancer patients is 12 to 18 months, with less than 9 percent living for five years after their diagnosis, according to Axelrod.
Jennings, 66, World News anchor since 1983, shocked his ABC colleagues - and the broadcast world - by revealing in a staff e-mail Tuesday morning that the cancer had been diagnosed the previous day.
He said that he would begin outpatient chemotherapy next week, and that he would anchor when his health permits. Good Morning America's Charlie Gibson and Elizabeth Vargas of 20/20, among others, will fill in.
Jennings had planned to anchor World News Tuesday, but changed his mind late in the day due to a weak voice. Looking thin, he told viewers his news in a taped segment at the end of the broadcast.
Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer in the United States, with roughly four out of five people who have the disease dying within five years, Axelrod says.
The five leading causes: "Smoking, smoking, smoking, smoking and smoking."
Jennings, once described by a colleague as a "relentless smoker," says he quit 20 years ago but started again during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Nightline's Ted Koppel "was always goading Peter to quit," says Bob Zelnick, chairman of Boston University's journalism department and an ABC correspondent from '77 to '98.
"Sometimes Peter was like a kid, smoking in the bathroom or stealing a cigarette in the hallway," Zelnick says. "At one point, he went to a hypnotist to try to get control of it."
The traditional course of chemo for lung cancer is in cycles of three to four weeks, Axelrod says.
Some people "actually do very well. They're able to work and enjoy life... . They only need to take a few days off at a time."
Meanwhile, the abcnews.com message board has been flooded with good wishes for Jennings, ABC News' Jeffrey Schneider says.
Jennings joined Wednesday in World News' daily 9 a.m. editorial conference call and spoke throughout the day with exec producer Jon Banner, but he didn't anchor last night.
In the wings. Though ABC has no succession plan in place for Jennings, news division chief David Westin has the luxury of a deep bench.
Gibson, 62, and Vargas, 42, already designated subs, would be on any short list. Vargas is considered a fast-tracker at the network.
Other possibilities: chief White House correspondent Terry Moran and World News Saturday anchor Bob Woodruff.
If ABC decides to go with network evening news' first solo woman, GMA's Diane Sawyer, 59, is the logical choice, says CBS Evening News interim anchor Bob Schieffer.
"I have no idea whether she would want to leave GMA, but she's always been the one I would have thought was the strongest woman anchor right now in television, and she works for ABC."
Since Tom Brokaw stepped down Dec. 1, Jennings has brought World News close to the top-rated NBC Nightly News in the Nielsen wars. (CBS Evening News remains a distant third.)
With CBS's Dan Rather having stepped down March 9, ABC is perfectly poised to make a move. Its promo for Jennings says it all: "Trust is earned."
Neither will I.
I LOVE those kissy smiley faces!!!!
I've long suspected that the anti-smoking virulence is a beard for other problems they have.
Unless they really are as shallow as they come across.
I have wondered about both of those possibilities for years.
What really bothers me is that so many of them truly believe so much of the venom they spew. I have actually come across some comments (I don't think here) stating that this is exactly what Peter Jennings deserves because he is a smoker and others stating this proves that smoking causes cancer.
It doesn't matter whether I smoke or not - this issue is not about smoking to me - it is about un-neccessary government intrusion in personal and private business decisions. Plain and simple.
They are cute, aren't they? Big Ole Hug. hehe
"Joyless ghouls" Now THAT"S one I'm going to have to remember.
I'm in agreement.
But underlying this is the hideous mob mentality that's becoming more apparent every day.
It's as if Americans have lost their ability to get along in a free society. Being different, quirky, eccentric - whatever - used to be something that Americans tolerated, took pride in.
Something dark and small and smothering is seeping in, and it smells of Old World.
They live to hector.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Thank you - I haven't seen a topic that heated on FR before but I am an infrequent visitor. Smoking is always a hot button because opinion is diverse and fully cemented.
I repeat my earlier post:
To: All
While smoking can cause various physical impairment, there is another "illness" I see in many people - that of frustration and anger at others for their perceived lifestyles.
People stand a better chance of living a long and healthy life if they calm down and accept others as they are with the hope that one day that person will seek out change on their own decision.
A good way to calm down is to check out why the anger occurs and do some self examination.
There is no more wasted emotion than uninvited anger at another person - especially a stranger.
If you really want to help, point those you are concerned about to positive information, offer support, stand back and let them make their own way.
Nagging never bought a person any satisfaction!
I lost a cousin 6 years ago. She was my "sister" and soul mate. Even though we lived in different states we talked on the phone 4 times a week.I knew her like a book and she knew everything about me and she had an utterly phenomenal sense of humor.
I was devastated when she died suddenly of a heart attack,in fact I think of her every day.
When I told a neighbor of mine about it she asked "Did she smoke?. I said yes,and she said "Oh,well",waved her hand dismissively,and changed the subject.
This is what it has come to.
I understand. My husband died at 40 from a heart attack which was actually caused by a drug reaction, but I would just cut it short and say 'heart attack.' Well, I stopped doing that because people would look at me and ask, "What were you feeding him?" or "Did he smoke?" Yeah, he smoked, but he was of average build and in better shape than most of them.
I got tired of these scientific geniuses blaming me for his heart attack. You can't imagine (well, you can) how rude and self-righteous some people are.
I also know that it has come to this.
It's as if a rock has been turned over, and all manner of hideous creatures are swarming out.
And not to put too fine a point on it, the anti-smoking jihad implied permissions.
The Founders rejected a pure democracy as a form of government for good reason.
Sad about your husband,way too young,but the way people judge others today astonishes me.
Smoking seems to have become the only reason,along with weight,that people die.
What they are really saying is live a "healthy" lifestyle(as they define it) and you will live forever.
What fools they are and again,sorry for your loss.
How stunned they'll be when they die in perfect health.
I know,what a shock it wil be to them.
I can still hear my late mother's voice saying "He was never sick a day in his life,he just died in his sleep".(We,as kids,got a big kick out of that.)
The antis truly think they are immortal,don't they?
They hope they are, it staves off the panic.
Florence is a very witty woman. I hope she lives longer than my sister, also named Florence, who started smoking at age sixteen and did two packs a day for almost forty years. She died at age 54.
If I'm not mistaken, Florence is in her 70's now.
My father started smoking at 12, and lived to the age of 78.
Florence's smoking and wit are part of her persona.
It's all a crapshoot on our inexorable march to the grave.
Some of you are just aren't incessantly hectored about every turn we take on that march.
Leave it alone.
Unless you've given up on the idea that people are individuals, and all that suggests.
None of you tobacco addicts will face the fact that, despite your granny Mo who lived to be 137 huffing three and a half packs of unfiltered Camels a day while jogging up Mt. Everest with a 75-lb. backpack in pink tennis shoes, this is sadly not the case for Peter Jennings and millions of others who have lost the "crapshoot" as you so blithely and callously express it.
You hijacked a thread intended to express concern for Mr. Jennings, who clearly is paying the consequences of his foolish decision to stuff burning, noxious leaves and chemicals into his mouth and pollute the lungs God gave him, while dooming himself to torturous and most likely futile attempts at treatment. He deserves our prayers and, to a certain degree, our pity since he apparently started using again after 9/11. But that's not good enough for you. Noooo. You have to make it your personal rant about your so-called freedom, as if the Founders were all just looking down the corridors of time to justify you in your self-righteous silliness, and attempt a smackdown of anyone with the chutzpah to call you on it.
This is not about your constitutional rights. It's not the green light for your adolescent rah-rah waving of the Marlboro flag like you're on Iwo Jima or something. It's about a really stupid, stupid addiction that robs children of moms and dads, and loved ones of those dear to them, long before their time and in the most painful of circumstances. That's not mentioning what comes out of my pocket and yours in the form of increased insurance payments because of the high cost of health care attributed to this filthy habit.
But then, like most addicts, you consider everything really is about you, don't you?
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