Overview
- The 35-year-old journalist, daughter of Caroline Kennedy and granddaughter of John F. Kennedy, made the disclosure in a personal New Yorker essay titled "A Battle with My Blood."
- Doctors identified acute myeloid leukemia with the rare Inversion 3 mutation on May 25, 2024, hours after she delivered her daughter, following a white‑blood‑cell count of 131,000 per microliter.
- She has undergone multiple rounds of chemotherapy, two stem‑cell transplants (first from her sister, then an unrelated donor), CAR‑T and other clinical trials at NewYork‑Presbyterian/Columbia and Memorial Sloan Kettering, but the disease has repeatedly relapsed.
- A severe Epstein–Barr virus complication in September damaged her kidneys and required rehabilitation to walk again.
- She criticizes HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for cuts to mRNA research and NIH funding that she says jeopardize cancer research and clinical trials patients depend on.