McCain, Ted Kennedy die same date, 9 years apart, from same cancer
Fmr. McCain chief of staff: He was a great voice for America
John McCain’s death from brain cancer at age 81 came exactly nine years after the death of Ted Kennedy – and both longtime U.S. senators died from the same type of brain cancer.
McCain, R-Ariz., had been battling the illness for just over a year while Kennedy, D-Mass., died at age 77, 13 months after his diagnosis, the Arizona Republic reported.
Both succumbed to glioblastoma, which affects roughly 10,000 Americans a year and is described by doctors as “highly malignant.”
I was reflecting how the meaning of some words change with time. Take syphilis, for example. Used to be syphilis was adequate to describe the venereal disease. Then the term was modified to tertiary syphilis to describe late stage syphilis that affected the nervous system and brain. It appears to me, that term has been discarded in favor of glioblastoma or brain cancer.