By Howard Wolinsky
The murder charge against O.J. Simpson hit the public consciousness on June 17, 1994 with a two-hour slow chase on SoCal freeways. The police armed with an arrest warrant were in pursuit of white Ford Bronco. The 30-year chase through Simpson’s notorious has ended with his death, apparently from prostate cancer.
O.J. Simpson had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and received chemotherapy treatment before he died, Pro Football Hall of Fame President Jim Porter said in a statement Thursday, after the former running back's family confirmed his death.
Simpson, 76, once lived a charmed life as a football star and Hollywood actor only to become a disgraced symbol of domestic violence and racial division after being found not guilty of stabbing to death his ex-wife Nichole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman. His was dubbed “The Trial of The Century.”
Simpson’s children said in a post on the social media platform X that he died April 10 with family gathered around him from cancer. It previously was reported he was undergoing chemotherapy treated for prostate cancer. He had denied he was in hospice.
I remember the nation’s O.J. ordeal well. Don’t you? We were like deer caught in the O.J. headlights.
I had a new book out, “The Serpent on the Staff: The Unhealthy Politics of the American Medical Association.”
O.J. was sitting in the backseat of the Bronco chase driven by his Buffalo Bills buddy Al Cowlings. At the time, I was signing books in the famed Stuart Brent bookstore on Michigan Avenue bookstore in downtown Chicago during the AMA’s annual meeting. We didn’t know the chase was on, though we soon found out.
For two years, the country followed the O.J. trial and his acquittal. As an author promoting a book on a national tour, I can tell you it felt as though there was virtually no news but O.J. news for about two years.
I was in LA during the trial, where I spoke to a few groups. But the LA news media only covered O.J. While in SoCal, I had an interview with a radio station in San Francisco.
Simpson was acquitted in the criminal trial in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to family members of Brown and Goldman.
Remember how his lawyer, Johnnie Cochran Jr. in the criminal case had Simpson model a glove similar to a bloody glove found in Simpson’s house: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” In any case, The Juice was acquitted and went on to have other unrelated legal problems that sent him to jail.
Talking about gloves. Could a urologist’s gloves have fit? We may never know.
So ends the tragic life of a legend.
(Footnote: Simpson was part of the prostate cancer epidemic among Blacks. The American Cancer reports that Black men are more than twice as likely to die from the disease than their white counterparts.)
Exercising with the oldies at ASPI
By Howard Wolinsky
Time to get off your duff and start exercising. It could slow down or prevent prostate cancer.
Active Surveillance Patients International (ASPI) is holding a webinar on exercise and how it helps patients with prostate cancer.
The program, "How Can Exercise Help Prostate Cancer Patients Like Me?”, will be held from noon to 1:30 pm Eastern Saturday, April 27, 2024.
Register here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEkf-yhqzIrGNM4XZLgtpjBB7Ev1rC93Oi_#/registration
(Kerry Cournyea, PhD.)
The program includes the premiere of the latest in the Active Surveillance (AS) 101 video series, featuring a real couple, Nancy and Karry White, interviewing an exercise expert, Kerry Cournyea, PhD, whose research has proven the benefit of exercise in slowing low-grade prostate cancer.
Cournea will be available to answer questions following the video.
He said his research has shown “exercise is the single most important thing” a cancer patient can do—even more important than diet"
His research has shown patients with prostate cancer (low-risk to high-risk), lymphatic cancer, and other cancers benefit from exercise.
His study in JAMA Oncology, showed for the first time that High Impact Intensity Training–bursts of exercise rather than a continuous approach—can help suppress the growth of prostate cancer cells in men on active surveillance. (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2783273)