Dr. Steven Lomazow — FDR Unmasked: 73 Years of Medical Cover-ups That Rewrote History

Roosevelt House is pleased to present a discussion of FDR Unmasked: 73 Years of Medical Cover-ups That Rewrote History by Dr. Steven Lomazow. In this medical history, Dr. Lomazow chronicles FDR’s life from a physician’s perspective—delivering the harrowing tale of FDR’s heroic achievements and extraordinary presidential leadership during a series of dangerous, life-threatening medical challenges.

“An extensively researched and persuasive medical biography” (Kirkus Reviews), FDR Unmasked seeks to reveal the “hidden” illnesses that shaped FDR’s life and, in so doing, changed the course of history. While conventional wisdom holds that FDR overcame a bout of polio at age 39 and remained in reasonably good health from that point until he died of a stroke at age 63, Lomazow strongly contends—using new and original research—that FDR’s inner circle concealed a number of serious and ongoing medical problems.

Drawing on FBI memoranda, first-hand reports, a diary kept by FDR’s closest companion, and even the words of Eleanor Roosevelt herself, FDR Unmasked endeavors to expose a multitude of maladies battled by FDR at virtually every stage of his career—including epilepsy, severe cardiovascular disease, and potentially incurable cancers. In addition, Lomazow considers FDR’s friendship with the physician who is said to have helped hide Woodrow Wilson’s disabling stroke; his friendship with Vincent Astor, who is thought to have provided a yacht for secret medical treatments; and how a weakened FDR may have conceded too much to Stalin at Yalta.

Steven Lomazow, M.D., is a board-certified neurologist in practice for 43 years. His first FDR biography, FDR’s Deadly Secret, written with journalist Eric Fettmann, was published in 2010 by Public Affairs. Dr. Lomazow served as a trustee of the FDR Library and Museum at Hyde Park and has written numerous scholarly articles about FDR’s health for peer-reviewed medical journals, including “The Epilepsy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt” in Neurology. He is also a reviewer for the Journal of Medical Biography, former president of the Medical History Society of New Jersey, and former president of the Neurological Association of New Jersey. A generous friend to Roosevelt House, he has loaned to the house posters and other prints for exhibitions and donated a set of 1930s Vanity Fair magazines, currently on display in the Four Freedoms Room,  featuring caricatures of FDR and other New Dealers.