Jared Kushner – billionaire real estate developer and former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law – received treatment for thyroid cancer while he served as senior advisor to the president, according to an excerpt from his book “Breaking History: A White House Memoir,” provided to The New York Times.
American Cancer Society statistics from this year show that there have been 43,800 new cases of thyroid cancer reported, including 11,860 in men and 31,940 in women, as well as 2,230 deaths from the disease (1,070 men and 1,160 women).
“Until recently, thyroid cancer was the most rapidly increasing cancer in the U.S., largely due to increased detection,” said the organization. “Much of this rise appears to be the result of the use of more sensitive diagnostic procedures, such as CT or MRI scans (done for other medical problems), which can detect incidental small thyroid nodules that might not otherwise have been found in the past.”
Kushner, 41, was aboard Air Force One in 2019, traveling to Texas for the opening of a Louis Vuitton factory when White House physician Sean Conley informed him that his test results from Walter Reed Military Medical Center had come back positive.
“It looks like you have cancer,” Conley said, according to the excerpt. “We need to schedule a surgery right away.”
Thyroid cancer – which could cause symptoms such as neck swelling or a neck lump – is often diagnosed at a younger age than most other adult cancers, said the American Cancer Society. It impacts the thyroid gland, a small butterfly-shaped gland located at the base of the throat that uses iodine to regulate hormones that regulate the amount of calcium in the blood, heart rate, body temperature, and metabolism, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Surgery is the most common treatment for the condition, the institute said.
In his memoir, expected to be released next month, Kushner said that a doctor at New York-Presbyterian Hospital “concluded that I needed surgery to remove an unusual growth in my thyroid and we scheduled the operation for the Friday before Thanksgiving.”
Around that time, Kushner was part of discussions regarding a trade deal with China.
Kushner said he concentrated on work after the diagnosis and tried “not to think about the upcoming surgery or the unwanted growth in my body.” He added that he reminded himself that the situation “was in the hands of God and the doctors, and that whatever happened was out of my control. At moments, I caught myself wondering whether I would need extensive treatment.”
Before joining the staff of his Republican father-in-law’s White House, Kushner was a major financial supporter of the Democratic Party and various charities, according to Biography.
He is the son of real estate developer Charles Kushner, who was sentenced to two years in prison for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal political campaign donations. While his father was in prison, Kushner took over his real estate business and in 2006, the year after his father plead guilty, he purchased the New York Observer and became its publisher. Two years later he became CEO of Kushner Companies.
The following year, he married Ivanka Trump – who converted to Orthodox Judaism for the marriage – after dating for around two years. They have a daughter and two sons. After winning the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump named Kushner a senior adviser to the president in 2017.
According to Kushner, he did not want many people to know of his diagnosis, including the president. He scheduled his surgery near Thanksgiving in an effort to keep the operation private.
“That way, I would miss the least amount of time in the office,” he explained. “My absence might even go unnoticed. That’s how I wanted it.”
Kushner said his illness was “not for public consumption.” He said that he told just a small group of people that included his wife, two of his aides and Mick Mulvaney, who at the time was White House chief of staff.
“His illness was one of the few pieces of information that did not leak out of one of the leakiest White Houses in modern memory,” said The New York Times.
However, Kushner said his father-in-law did discover the secret before his surgery.
“The day before the surgery, Trump called me into the Oval Office and motioned for his team to close the door. ‘Are you nervous about the surgery?’ he asked,” said Kushner.
When Kushner asked how Trump knew about the operation, he answered “I’m the president. I know everything. I understand that you want to keep these things quiet. I like to keep things like this to myself as well. You’ll be just fine. Don’t worry about anything with work. We have everything covered here.”
“The death rate for thyroid cancer increased slightly from 2009 to 2018 (0.6% per year) but appears to have stabilized in recent years,” according to The American Cancer Society.
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