Former Sen. Paul Tsongas, faced with his third cancer battle, conceded he had mishandled questions about his health during his aborted presidential campaign this year.
"I have come to the painful conclusion that there's no way around full medical disclosure," he said Monday at a news conference, where he confirmed a new growth in his abdomen is cancerous.Tsongas urged President-elect Clinton to set up a commission to determine the scope of medical information candidates must disclose. Some details might be embarrassing to a candidate but have no medical implications, he said.
Tsongas, 51, left the Senate in 1984 after being diagnosed with lymphatic cancer. He underwent an experimental operation in July 1986 in which some bone marrow was removed and treated to kill the cancer cells.
Tsongas swam laps in a pool for television ads during his Democratic presidential primary campaign to demonstrate that he was healthy and "cancer-free."
But he had suffered a recurrence in 1987, and although some reporters knew about it, Tsongas said Monday his campaign should have made the point clear.
"We've certainly paid a price for that," Tsongas said.
He lashed out at reporters for implying he had tried to cover up his 1987 operation and for what he called harassment of his wife and 11-year-old daughter "about whether her daddy had cancer" as speculation raged about his diagnosis during the past week.
Had he won the presidency, Tsongas said he would have dealt with his medical problems "like you deal with everything else."
He did not rule out running for president again. "To say because someone once had cancer, one cannot run again, that is a frightening conclusion," he said.
Tsongas said he will begin chemotherapy and radiation treatment, and that those measures should effectively remove the new cancer, which he identified as large-cell lymphoma.
He said it was unclear if the latest growth is a recurrence of the earlier episodes.
Doctors at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where Tsongas was diagnosed, declined to comment. The institute's spokeswoman, Gina Vild, said a medical history was being prepared at Tsongas' request and would be released.