general election<\/a> campaign when he noticed a swelling on his throat while shaving.<\/p>\nHe said the diagnosis was “a shock”, but he was “heartened by the confidence of the doctors”. He added that telling his family, especially his son, was the hardest part.<\/p>\n
Speaking on RT\u00c9’s Today with Claire Byrne, Mr Boyd Barrett said he wanted to let his constituents and supporters know that he will be taking a step back as he undergoes a gruelling course of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which is expected to begin next week.<\/p>\n
“Apparently, the treatment is pretty rough,” Mr Boyd Barrett said, adding that he has been told that eating and drinking will be difficult given the place of the cancer.<\/p>\n
Having gone to the doctor immediately after November’s election, Mr Boyd Barrett was referred for cancer screening.<\/p>\n
“I ended up having to get my tonsils taken out, and they found that I had throat cancer that was prompted by the HPV virus. I didn’t know much about it, but apparently about 70% or 80% of the population have it. It can be sitting in your system.<\/p>\n
“The doctor said ‘you probably picked this up years ago and then it can just activate’.”<\/p>\n
Encouraging young people to avail of a vaccine which is now available, he said: “People should be aware of the HPV virus. I sort of was aware of it, but I didn’t realise 70% or 80% of the population have it. It’s just latent there.”<\/p>\n
Mr Boyd Barrett added that he was very “unlucky” as the cancer was not caused by smoking or any genetic reasons.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to be hard to step back, I’ll be honest, looking at the stuff that’s happening, there are very dramatic events happening around the world.<\/p>\n
“I’m sorry I won’t be around for some of them, you know, the economic war Trump has launched; the horrors that are ongoing in Gaza; the housing crisis, which is a huge issue in this country and in my area.<\/p>\n
“I regret, in a way, that I won’t be around to campaign on those things, but all going well, I’ll be back.”<\/p>\n
He added that it “wouldn’t be a bad idea” to have a system of allowing TDs to use a substitute if they have to take leave for medical reasons.<\/p>\n
Speaking in Cork, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said he was “very sorry” to hear that Mr Boyd Barrett had throat cancer.<\/p>\n
“I want to wish Richard the very, very best as he receives treatment. He is a very passionate contributor to D\u00e1il \u00c9ireann \u2014 I\u2019ve always enjoyed our jousts\u00a0 \u2014 I wish him well.<\/p>\n
“We have good, very modern treatments so the very best to Richard on his recovery.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Boyd Barret has revealed he will be stepping back from politics as he undergoes treatment for throat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1204,105,2801,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-5029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-person-richard-boyd-barrett","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}