In a raw and profoundly moving personal essay published in The New Yorker on Saturday, November 22, 2025, Tatiana Schlossberg, the accomplished environmental journalist and JFKs granddaughter, shared a devastating news with the world. She is battling terminal acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and has been told by her doctors she may have less than a year left to live.
The daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, her disclosure is a shattering personal tragedy added to the already storied and often painful history of the Kennedy family.
At 35 years old, a wife to George Moran and a young mother to two small children, Tatiana Schlossberg’s confrontation with aggressive cancer is a testament to resilience, a powerful critique of American health policy, and a poignant meditation on mortality.
The essay, “A Battle with My Blood,” not only details her private, 18-month struggle but also serves as an indictment of the political decisions made by her own cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., regarding the public health research she so desperately relies upon.
A Life Forged in Service and Scholarship
Tatiana Schlossberg was born Tatiana Celia Kennedy Schlossberg on May 5, 1990, in New York City, the second of three Caroline Kennedy children. Her lineage is one of the most recognizable in American history – her mother, Caroline Kennedy, is the only living child of President John F Kennedy (JFK) and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Her father, Edwin Schlossberg, is an artist and designer. Growing up in the shadow of the Kennedy dynasty, Schlossberg carved a path defined by intellectual rigor and a commitment to global issues, rather than seeking the spotlight.
Her academic career was stellar. After graduating from the prestigious Trinity School, she attended Yale University, earning a degree in History in 2012, followed by a Master of Studies in American History from the University of Oxford. This scholastic foundation prepared her for a serious career in journalism.
The Environmental Reporter: A Distinctive Voice
Tatiana Schlossberg quickly established herself as a meticulous and compelling writer, focusing her considerable talents on the environmental beat. She reported for The Record and the Vineyard Gazette before moving to The New York Times, where she became a respected voice on climate change for the Science and Climate section. Her reporting often concentrated on the local and personal impacts of global warming, connecting the vast, overwhelming nature of the crisis to the tangible realities of daily life.
Her work culminated in the 2019 book, Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have.
The book, which won the Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award, explored the hidden environmental costs of ordinary activities from streaming Netflix to consuming fashion, solidifying her reputation as a groundbreaking author.
Her professional identity as an environmental advocate and journalist was built upon her own merit, independent of her family name, making her news of terminal tatiana kennedy schlossberg illness even more shocking to her readers.
The Onset of Illness: Acute Myeloid Leukemia
The diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia was swift, brutal, and unexpected, striking a woman who had, by all accounts, been in peak health. Tatiana Schlossberg wrote that the illness was discovered in May 2024, immediately following the birth of her second child, a daughter. During routine postpartum bloodwork, her doctor noted a critical abnormality.
“A normal white-blood-cell count is around four to eleven thousand cells per microliter,” Schlossberg wrote in her New Yorker essay. “Mine was a hundred and thirty-one thousand.”
This alarming count led quickly to the diagnosis of AML, a rare and aggressive cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Specifically, she was diagnosed with a rare and typically devastating form of the disease linked to a mutation known as Inversion 3, which is mostly seen in older people.
The shock was profound, as she recalled feeling completely healthy: “I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn’t sick. I didn’t feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew.”
The Grueling Battle for Survival
Over the last 18 months, Tatiana Schlossberg has endured a punishing medical regimen in a desperate attempt to achieve remission. Her treatment journey has been marked by repeated, intensive rounds of chemotherapy and two separate stem cell transplants. The first transplant utilized cells from her sister, and the second was from an unrelated donor.
Despite the initial attempts to cure the disease, the AML proved relentlessly aggressive, leading her to enroll in a clinical trial for CAR-T cell therapy earlier in the year. This advanced form of immunotherapy, developed through decades of publicly funded research, represents the cutting edge of blood cancer treatment. However, it was during this trial that she received the devastating final prognosis.
“During the latest clinical trial, my doctor told me that he could keep me alive for a year, maybe,” she disclosed. This terminal diagnosis frames the remainder of her essay, turning her battle into a final, courageous act of witnessing and documentation.
The Power of Family: George Moran and Caroline Kennedy
The strength of Tatiana Schlossberg’s immediate family shines through her essay, providing a necessary counterpoint to the clinical harshness of her diagnosis. Her husband, Dr. George Moran, whom she married in 2017 after the couple met at Yale, has been her unflinching anchor.
Moran, a physician himself, took on the burden of managing her complex medical needs, communicating with doctors and insurance companies, and even sleeping on the hospital floor to be by her side. Schlossberg referred to him as her “kind, funny, handsome genius” and expressed the deep, profound grief of knowing she will miss their wonderful life together.
The burden of caring for their two young children—a three-year-old son, Edwin, and a one-year-old daughter—has been shouldered largely by her devoted parents and siblings. Caroline Kennedy, the former Ambassador and caroline kennedy’s daughter, along with Edwin Schlossberg, her father, and her siblings, Rose and Jack, have been constants in her hospital rooms and primary caregivers for her children.
Schlossberg wrote with heartbreaking self-awareness about the emotional toll her illness has taken, particularly on her mother. She spoke of her life-long desire to protect her mother from further pain, only to have added another public tragedy to the family’s history, referencing the assassinations of her grandfather, JFK, and her great-uncle, Robert F. Kennedy, as well as the death of her uncle, John F. Kennedy Jr.
“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,” she 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.”
A Political Critique from the Patient’s Bedside
In a powerful convergence of the personal and the political, Tatiana Schlossberg used her essay not just to document her tatiana schlossberg illness but also to issue a direct condemnation of her cousin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who currently serves as the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
During her year and a half of treatment, Schlossberg watched her cousin rise to political prominence and subsequently implement policies that she believes actively undermine the very medical research and public health infrastructure keeping her alive.
She specifically criticized his actions as Health Secretary, citing:
Cuts to Research: She observed that he “cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers,” and “slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health.” The clinical trials offering her only chance at survival are dependent on this very funding.
Targeting Essential Medications: Schlossberg revealed she was given misoprostol to stop a life-threatening postpartum hemorrhage immediately after giving birth.
The drug, which is also used for medication abortion, is a target of her cousin’s political base, and she expressed fear that his actions could jeopardize the immediate availability of such life-saving medications for millions of women.
Erosion of Trust: Her husband, George Moran, a doctor, had concerns about insurance coverage for her preexisting condition should he change jobs, and doctors at her hospital were worried about their future as federal funding was threatened, all contributing to a feeling that the healthcare system she relied on had become “strained, shaky.”
Schlossberg’s commentary is a brave and timely plea against political interference in scientific institutions, asserting that her life, and the lives of countless other cancer patients and women, are directly at risk from these policy decisions.
The Enduring Legacy of Tatiana Kennedy Schlossberg
The news of her terminal cancer diagnosis, delivered on the very day, November 22, that marks the 62nd anniversary of her grandfather JFK’s assassination, adds a layer of sorrowful historical coincidence to her story. Yet, even in the face of this immense personal tragedy, Tatiana Schlossberg has defined her final contribution to the public sphere: a story of vulnerability, strength, and an appeal for science and compassion.
Her initial goal as an environmental journalist was to write a new book about the destruction and possibilities of the oceans. Now, her final, unwritten chapter focuses on her family and the precious time she has left. She wrote poignantly about her fear that her children, her son and her one-year-old caroline kennedy daughter—will not remember her face or her voice.
“Mostly, I try to live and be with them new,” she concluded. “But being in the present is harder than it sounds, so I let the memories come and go. I will keep trying to remember.”
Tatiana Schlossberg’s legacy will not only rest on her vital work bringing the climate crisis into sharp focus but also on the raw, powerful truth of her final personal and political statement.
It is a story of a young, intellectually formidable woman who, facing the unimaginable end, chose to use her voice to fight for the research that could not save her, but which may save the next generation.
The strength of the JFKs granddaughter shines through in her willingness to share this devastating chapter with the world, offering a final lesson in courage and the profound value of every single day.
