Several cancer survivors are running for president in 2008, but they probably won’t face the public scrutiny of 1992 Democratic candidate Paul Tsongas, who had left the U.S. Senate eight years earlier to battle non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Candidates who are cancer survivors in this presidential race haven’t yet faced that level of attention to their health history, says Robert Gilbert, presidential historian at the University of Massachusetts. Tsongas was found to have lymphoma again just weeks after the election, and he died in January 1997.

“If Tsongas had been elected president, the country would have had to confront a major cancer problem,” says Gilbert, author of The Mortal Presidency: Illness and Anguish in the White House. “His cancer would have come out around the time of his inauguration; then he would have become isolated while undergoing a bone marrow transplant and [would] eventually die in office.”

Among the current candidates who are cancer survivors are Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who have both had malignant melanoma, and former New York City Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who had prostate cancer. Former Tennessee senator and presumed Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson is a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma survivor.

Several candidates have also had family members with cancer, including Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., whose mother died in 1995 of ovarian cancer; former Arkansas Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose wife, Jane, survived a cancerous spinal tumor; and former Democratic Sen. John Edwards, whose wife, Elizabeth, is fighting a recurrence of breast cancer.

Cancer is no stranger to the presidency. While in office, Ronald Reagan had surgeries for colon and skin cancer. And after leaving office, Ulysses S. Grant had cancer of the throat and Grover Cleveland had cancer of the jaw.

	Desmond Tutu Photo by Benny Gool/ Courtesy of the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation

In Perspective

Desmond Tutu, the retired South African Anglican Church archbishop, recently disclosed the recurrence of his prostate cancer, first diagnosed a decade ago. After his earlier diagnosis he told the American Cancer Society: “Cancer is a big boogie. Almost everybody begins to think they should begin composing their obituary. But it’s not true. Cancer is a good thing because it reminds us of our mortality.” Tutu won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his anti-apartheid activism.