Three months ago, nine-year-old Frank Hayes Jr. was pronounced free of leukemia following treatment with a new anti-cancer substance, L-asparaginase. Last week, in a Dallas hospital, he died. The immediate cause of death was pneumonia, brought on by a strain of bacteria that neither antibiotics nor sulfa drugs could kill. But the underlying cause was the leukemia, which prevented the boy's natural defense mechanisms from fighting off the infection.
His death shattered the hope of 90-year-old John Keener Wadley, oilman-turned-philanthropist, that Frank had been cured by the enzyme (TIME, April 14). Wadley, who lost an only grandson to leukemia...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
