Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of former President John F Kennedy, has passed away at 35, a month after revealing her terminal cancer diagnosis.
The sad news was shared on Tuesday, December 30, via the JFK Library Foundation’s Instagram account. Schlossberg, daughter of former US ambassador Caroline Kennedy, was mourned in this announcement.
“Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning,” the post stated. “She will always be in our hearts.”
The message was signed by Schlossberg’s immediate family, including her husband George, their children Edwin and Josephine, as well as her parents and siblings.
Schlossberg had been battling Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, a type of blood and bone cancer, since shortly after her second child’s birth. This condition results from uncontrolled growth of abnormal myeloid stem cells, which crowd out healthy cells.
Despite undergoing two rounds of chemotherapy, two stem cell transplants, and participating in various clinical trials, Schlossberg could not overcome the aggressive disease.
Throughout her illness, Schlossberg advocated for cancer patient healthcare, notably emphasizing the importance of vaccines for those with compromised immunity.
She publicly opposed her relative Robert F Kennedy Jr, the current US Secretary of Health and Human Services, for his anti-vaccine rhetoric.
In her essay for The New Yorker in November, published on the anniversary of JFK’s assassination, she expressed, “As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers.”
In the same piece, Schlossberg also reflected on her mortality and its potential impact on her family, considering the many tragedies the Kennedy family has endured.
Her grandfather, President Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963, and her uncle, John F Kennedy Jr, perished in a plane crash in 1999.
Her younger brother, Jack Schlossberg, is currently campaigning for a Congressional seat in New York.
“For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry,” Schlossberg wrote.
“Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it,” she expressed.
Schlossberg’s passing is a significant loss, not only to the Kennedy family but also to the broader community. Before her cancer diagnosis, she was a respected environmental journalist.
Her work mainly focused on climate change, with numerous articles in outlets like The New York Times addressing its ongoing effects and potential solutions.
“I think climate change is the biggest story in the world, and it’s a story about everything,” she told NBC News in 2019. “It’s about science and nature, but it’s also about politics and health and business. To me, looking at this as a journalist, it seemed like a really important story to tell.”
“And if I could help communicate about it, that might inspire other people to get involved and work on the issue,” she added.