Another Tragedy Hits Joe Biden As 46-Year-Old Son Of US VP Succumbs To Brain Cancer

Barely two years after he was diagnosed of brain cancer in August 2013, the 46-year-old son of US Vice President Joe Biden, Joseph "Beau" Biden III, died on Saturday. Beau, the former attorney general of Delaware, is survived by his wife Hallie and two children, Natalie and Hunter.

After his diagnosis, the younger Biden successfully went through surgery and chemotherapy. The disease returned and he went through treatment again. In early May, the VP’s son was confined at the Walter Reed National Military Center.

The vice president, in a statement, said the entire family is “saddened beyond words.” Biden, according to Washington Post, has a history of family tragedies. In 1972, after his election to the US Senate for the first time, the first wife of Biden and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, perished when their car crashed a few months after Biden’s election. His two other children, Beau who was 3 then and Hunter who was 2, were seriously hurt in the accident.

After the car crash, Biden said that he understood how some people are pushed to commit suicide due to grief. Forty years later, in a speech to military families and friends in 2012, Biden indicated that the wounds than happened in 1972 weren’t healed yet when he said, “No parents should be pre-deceased by their sons or daughters. I, unfortunately, have that experience, too.”

And the VP is reliving again that experience after three years with the demise of Beau whom the vice president described as “the finest man any of us have ever known.” He served as Delaware’s AG from 2007 until his death. Beau also was a war veteran, having served in Iraq from 2008 through 2009 when he was deployed as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard which he joined in 2003. In 2014, he didn’t seek a third term as AG because he planned to run for governor in 2016.

US President Barack Obama, in his message to the VP, said, “Like his dad, Beau was a good, big-hearted, devoutly Catholic and deeply faithful man, who made a difference in the lives of all he touched – and he lives on in their lives.

Beau joined the estimated 15,320 US residents who die of brain cancer annually. For 2015, 22,850 adults in the US are expected to be diagnosed with primary cancerous tumours of the brain and spinal cord, while another 4,300 children and teens will be diagnosed with a brain or central nervous system tumour, according to Cancer.net.

Brain cancer is caused by the growth and spread of malignant tumours in the brain, overpowering the healthy cells by taking over their space, blood and nutrients. It could also spread to other distant parts of the body, according to WebMD.

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