“The Public Has a Right to Know the Condition of the President’s Health”, Bill Clinton 1996

President Bill Clinton thought all health reports of Presidents and Presidential candidates should be released and reported. Why is Hillary refusing to release her health records?  That’s just one of the many questions people are asking.  There are many more.

In 1996 President Clinton released a very detailed personal health report. It was so detailed we learned more than we wanted to know about his hemorrhoids and weight problems.  We also learned that President Clinton’s often hoarse voice was due to caffeine which irritated his larynx and vocal cords.  So much detail!

On the other hand, Paul Tsongas, one of Clinton’s primary opponents in 1992 took the opposite approach.  He had his doctors lie about his lymphoma cancer, implying it had been cured when it hadn’t. He died of recurrence in January 1997, which would have been the end of his first term had he been elected President.  From the Baltimore Sun, 

“if the full facts had been known about the recurrence of his cancer earlier in 1992, another candidate might have won the eight primaries or caucuses that Tsongas captured and that candidate, not Bill Clinton, might have emerged as the nominee.

 

Tsongas’ death Jan. 18 from pneumonia at age 55 came two days shy of what would have been a full term. The pneumonia was the final, fatal complication of many complications for treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that he had battled since 1983. In his fight, Tsongas underwent two bone marrow transplants, in 1986 and last May.

 

The first transplant failed. A cancerous lymph node was found in his armpit less than a year later, as Tsongas and his doctors later acknowledged.

More on President Clinton’s health in the NY Times 1996,

Mr. Clinton said he had overcome the problem of hoarseness that hampered his 1992 campaign by drinking copious amounts of water, not eating late at night, raising the head of his bed and taking , Prilosec, or omeprazole, and occasional antacids. The aim is to reduce gastric reflux, a common condition in which stomach acid passes up the esophagus and may irritate the vocal cords.

 

Mr. Clinton fights allergies with desensitization shots that he takes every week, a nonsedating antihistamine and decongestant drug, Claritin-D, and an anti-inflammatory steroid nasal spray, called Nasalide. An allergist has adjusted the shots to include substances prevalent in the Washington area that are most apt to trigger allergic reactions.

Now we have no idea what Hillary’s medical problems are or what medications she is taking.  What changed?  Why did Bill Clinton feel it was important to release his medical records in great detail and Hillary does not?  Now Hillary can’t get into a van on her own, appears to be hobbling and then collapsing, and we get very little in the way of an explanation.  If she really has pneumonia shouldn’t she be avoiding crowds to avoid spreading it to others? Since Hillary lies about everything it’s difficult to accept at face value her explanation of what happened on Sunday in New York and why it happened.