Tatiana Schlossberg's Cousin, RFK Jr. Hindered Her Terminal Cancer Diagnosis? 'Embarassment To Me'

Tatiana Celia Kennedy Schlossberg, an environmental journalist and granddaughter of the late US President, John F. Kennedy, is currently leading the discussions due to her candid revelations regarding her personal life. Tatiana Schlossberg has revealed in a personal essay that she has been diagnosed with terminal acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and has less than a year to live. The thirty-five-year-old detailed her health struggles over the years and how she first came to know about her ailment. In the same essay, published by The New Yorker on November 22, 2025, Tatiana has also levied some serious accusations against her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., detailing how his policies impacted her cancer diagnosis.

Tatiana Schlossberg's cancer diagnosis and life expectancy

Tatiana Schlossberg was diagnosed with terminal acute myeloid leukemia in May 2024, shortly after giving birth to her second child, a daughter. At the time, she was an active, healthy 34-year-old, and thus, the diagnosis came as a complete shock. Tatiana's disease is a rare and aggressive form of the blood cancer with a specific mutation known as Inversion 3, which is typically seen in older patients. Since her diagnosis, she has undergone intensive treatments, including multiple rounds of chemotherapy, two bone-marrow transplants (one from her sister, Rose), and participation in clinical trials, including CAR-T-cell therapy.

Tatiana has experienced periods of remission followed by relapse. During her latest medical checkup, her doctor told her he could "keep [her] alive for a year, maybe." Some doctors initially raised the question of a potential connection to the 9/11 attacks because this specific type of cancer has been found to be common among first responders. However, Tatiana has clarified in her recently published essay that she was not at Ground Zero on the day of the attacks or shortly thereafter. She was a sixth-grader in New York at the time and did not visit the site until years later.

How did Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hamper Tatiana Schlossberg's cancer diagnosis?

In her essay for The New Yorker titled A Battle with My Blood, Tatiana Schlossberg criticised Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (better known as RFK Jr., her cousin and current US Health Secretary, for cutting funding for medical research. She expressed concern that his agenda could hurt cancer patients dependent on medical advancements, just as it did to her. She blasted RFK Jr. for cutting almost half a billion dollars from the fund initially allocated to mRNA vaccine research. RFK Jr. implemented the policy while Tatiana was undergoing treatment, which hurt her emotionally. She wrote:

"I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers."

Tatiana Schlossberg is strictly against the anti-vaccine stance of RFK Jr. and described her cousin as "an embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family". According to her, RFK Jr. served as a barrier to research on a life-changing treatment that had been under development for "over many decades with millions of dollars of government funding." She felt that her cancer diagnosis would have been sooner if the vaccine defunding had not happened. Tatiana's words in the New Yorker essay could be read as:

"Throughout my treatment, he had been on the national stage: previously a Democrat, he was running for President as an Independent, but mostly as an embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family."

Tatiana also revealed that her mother, Caroline Kennedy, wrote to the Senate to prevent Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., from being elected US Health Secretary because of his policy on vaccine funding. However, her mother's efforts went in vain, and Tatiana had to watch her cousin take the office while lying in her hospital bed. She also felt it was illogical for someone without a background in medicine or public health to be elected to a position in the field. She wrote:

"My mother wrote a letter to the Senate, to try and stop his confirmation; my brother [Jack Schlossberg] had been speaking out against his lies for months," wrote Schlossberg. "I watched from my hospital bed as Bobby, in the face of logic and common sense, was confirmed for the position, despite never having worked in medicine, public health, or the government."

What are your thoughts on Tatiana Schlossberg blaming her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for the delay in her cancer diagnosis? Let us know.

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