Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter speaks at an Ethical Elections Pact signing ceremony in Panama City, Friday, March 14, 2014. (Photo: AP Photo/Arnulfo Franco)
ATLANTA – Former President Jimmy Carter announced he has been diagnosed with cancer in a brief statement issued Wednesday. In a statement Wednesday, Carter made clear that the cancer is widely spread throughout his body, and that further information would be provided when more facts are known “possibly next week.”
“Recent liver surgery revealed that I have cancer that now is in other parts of my body,” Carter said in the statement released by the Carter Center. “I will be rearranging my schedule as necessary so I can undergo treatment by physicians at Emory Healthcare.”
The statement did not reveal where the cancer originated, but it is widely known that the liver is a place where cancer spreads and less known for being the primary source of it. Carter, 90, the nation’s 39th president, announced on Aug. 3 that he had surgery to remove a small mass from his liver.
Carter defeated Republican President Gerald Ford in 1976 with a pledge to always be honest, and adopted an early foreign policy akin to current President Barack Obama, which focused on disengagement under the banner of human rights and lessened America’s role around the world as the go-to global leader. However, a number of foreign policy blunders quickly sank the credibility of such a strategy and, unlike Obama, Carter pivoted to a more aggressive posture. Nevertheless, it was too late to save his bid for a second term in the White House, and Carter lost to Ronald Reagan in a landslide.
In 1982, following his defeat, Carter founded the Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta and would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. In his memoir A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, Carter revealed his family’s history of pancreatic cancer, noting that his father, brother and two sisters all succumbed to the disease, which “concerned” his doctors at Emory.
“The National Institutes of Health began to check all members of our family regularly, and my last remaining sibling, Gloria, sixty-four, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died in 1990,” Carter wrote. “There was no record of another American family having lost four members to this disease, and since that time I have had regular X-rays, CAT scans, or blood analyses, with hope of early detection if I develop the same symptoms.”
Carter wrote that being the only non-smoker in his family “may have been what led to my longer life” in the book he just recently finished promoting during a summer tour.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to President Carter,” said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. “There a lot we don’t know.”
Lichtenfeld said the first medical priority will be to determine where the cancer originated, as that will be pivotal in making a decision as to what treatment is appropriate for the former president. “Given the president’s age, any treatments, their potential and their impacts, will undoubtedly be discussed carefully with him and his family,” he added.
The announcement comes less than a month after Carter Center spokeswoman Deanna Congileo called the surgery “elective” and claimed the former president’s “prognosis is excellent for a full recovery.” She, as well as a spokesperson for Emory Healthcare, declined to answer further questions on Wednesday.
The health care system’s Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta touts its designation as a National Cancer Institute center and a recent U.S. News and World Report ranking among the top 25 cancer programs in the U.S. on its website.
