Kennedy not only had Addison’s but was lucky to survive it. In those days, before the introduction of glucocorticoids, a type of steroid, 80 percent of sufferers died within a year of diagnosis. John Wass, at the time we met, was particularly preoccupied with Addison’s disease. “It can be a very sad disease because the symptoms—principally loss of appetite and weight loss—are easily misdiagnosed,” he told me. “I recently dealt with the case of a really lovely young woman, just twenty-three years old and with a very promising future in front of her, who died of Addison’s because her doctor
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