On Tuesday, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told CNN that she is “cancer-free.”
She has been undergone cancer treatment twice in the past 13 months. She had her pancreatic tumor and two cancerous lung nodules removed in August and December 2018, respectively.
In the interview with CNN, the 86-year-old justice said she started her new year on a good note. She said, “I’m cancer-free. That’s good.”
In August 2018, she has to undergo a three-week radiation course for her pancreatic tumor, which was treated “definitively” and now there is no evidence of the disease elsewhere in the body.
In December 2018, Ginsburg had to get two cancerous nodules removed from her lung. The following month, she had to miss oral arguments for the first time in over 25 years.
A few weeks later, a spokesperson for the Supreme Court said, “Post-surgery evaluation indicates no evidence of remaining disease, and no further treatment is required.”
The liberal justice has also faced multiple other health issues over the last few years. In late 2018, she had a fall in her office, fracturing three ribs on her left side. Last year, she was hospitalized for fever with chills.
Apart from pancreatic cancer and lung cancer, she had colorectal cancer in 1999. So, in the last 20 years, she underwent cancer treatment four times.
Liberals and conservatives have been monitoring Ginsburg’s health because she is the court’s oldest justice.
Her health issues have made Democrats uneasy about another retirement or vacancy on the court.
Last year, in an interview with National Public Radio, Ginsburg brushed aside skepticism about her health, recalling a comment made by a senator long ago.
She said, “There was a senator, I think it was after my pancreatic cancer, who announced with great glee that I was going to be dead within six months.” “That senator, whose name I have forgotten, is now himself dead, and I am very much alive.”
