Trump's Dr. Oz Appearance Has Nothing To Do With Health
For the past two weeks, political commentators have been rapt over the state of the two presidential candidates aging bodies. Trump advocates have spun up theories about Clintons failing health( those pillows must mean something ), while the Clinton campaign recently released another note from her doctor explaining her pneumonia diagnosis. Tonight, Trump will appear on The Dr. Oz Show to talk about his health.
In manyways, this move is classic Trump: Oz is a hugely popular Tv host with a penchant for ratings and a questionable relationship with facts. Hes hosted anti-vaxxers, touted miracle cures, and faced a Senate subcommittee that berated him for endorsing weight loss supplements. Trump will be right at home in front of a camera, and in his free-ranging conversation with Oz, he can dodge and deflect as much as he wants.
Plus, the reveal has trumpeted, Trump will eventually release some actual, specific medical records.( At least, the campaign said he would, then backed off and said the appearance would be” a conversation generally about well-being ,” and then reversed again afterthe show’s videotapeing .) But those records probably won’t clear anything up.You cant assess a human being medical condition by chatting up on a stage with them, tells Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at UPenn.
On the reveal, Trump will share the results of a physical with Ozin the form of a one-page printout by Harold Bornstein, the doctor who penneda letter last year claiming that Trump would bethe healthiest individualever elected to the presidency if he wins.But how healthy Trump is( or Clinton, for that matter ), is beside the point. The president’s physical health has always beena weird footnote of US history, compared to, y’know, what they actually did in office. And the currentdiscussion isnt all been about health at allits more about transparency and one-upping the other candidate.
Presidential candidates have released medical records for 40 years, ever since George McGovern turned the presss attention to presidential health by announcing in 1972 that his running mate had been hospitalized for depression. Before then, the press didn’t encompas legislators’ health as closelypartly because reporters saw itas more off-limits, partly because they didn’t have the all-seeing eye of social media. Since then, its become somethingof an expectation. But Clinton and Trump have bucked that tendency, tells Larry Altman, a doctor and a veteran New York Times reporter on the presidential health beat. That discrepancy from the norm is fueling speculation about how healthy these candidates genuinely are.
Here’s the thing, though: What counts politicallyas medical records varies–and it probably differs from thesheafs of appointment records, prescriptions, and scrawled physicians’ notes you’d amassif you collected your own medical history. For a candidate, those records usually are letters from their doctor, summarizing the salient points of their medical history.
Before Wednesday’s note, Clinton released a two-page missive from her doctor, Lisa Bardack, in 2015. In 2008, the press dinged Illinois doctor David Scheiner for writing just2 76 terms to summarize the health of his patient, Barack Obama. Bob Dole, on the other hand, released a nine-page report in 1995, detailing his WWII wounds and his surgery for prostate cancer. And medical transparency hawk have touted John McCain, who released more than 1,000 pages of health in 2008 even if his campaign hand-picked the smaller group of journalists who were allowed to see the documents and dedicated them only a few hours to sift through it all.
The point is, physicians can essentially prefer how to present their patients medical history, so they can be as detailed or reticent as they wish, Moreno tells. Do you include smoking? A history of breast or prostate cancer in the family? Theres no consensus, he tells. And, in this election, Trumps chatting about his medical historyor, at the least, a page-longlist of information written by adoctor who called Trump’s lab test outcomes” astonishingly excellent” on a daytime talk reveal counts as a release.
But how healthy the candidates are( or arent) may not matter much anyway. Many chairpeople conceal their ailments: JFK and Addisons disease, FDR and polio, Woodrow Wilsons stroke, Grover Clevelands mouth cancer. For the most component, tells Robert Gilbert, a political scientistat Northeastern University, their presidencies ran finetheir sickness had little impact on their ability to get things done. That will probably hold true in this election, too.
So why demand those records? Its about transparency, Altman tells. He argues that its a matter of informing voterseven if the decision is theyre willing to vote for a candidate with heart problems, tell, at the least they know the risks. But if the candidates arent concealing life-threatening conditions, its a short jumping from being an notified voter to rubbernecking. Mostly, people are just curious, tells George Annas, a health law researcher at Boston University.
Candidates have attacked one another for not uncovering medical records before. But Trump has conqueredthis particular election-cyclegame: He attracted plenty of media buzz for appearing on Dr. Oz andbroadcasting that he has nothing to hide health-wise, while simultaneously uncovering very little.Sure, he mostlyeats fast food andconsiders vigorous gesticulation during speeches exercise. That has nothing to do with how he’ll perform in office, should he win.
Trump's Dr. Oz Appearance Has Nothing To Do With Health
Trump's Dr. Oz Appearance Has Nothing To Do With Health
Trump's Dr. Oz Appearance Has Nothing To Do With Health
Trump's Dr. Oz Appearance Has Nothing To Do With Health
Trump's Dr. Oz Appearance Has Nothing To Do With Health