Our history of hiding presidents' health problems must end today

The American presidency has never been known for its health transparency, just the opposite. Yet transparency is essential for the American public to assess its leader's fitness,  justify voting for him or her and feel confident that this leader can fulfill the duties he or she was elected for.

I interviewed President Trump following his bout with COVID in late 2020. He appeared open about feelings of weakness, saying “I didn’t feel like the president of the U.S. should feel.” White House physician Dr. Sean Connolly was quick to reveal to me details of Trump's illness and recovery and the treatments he received, including steroids and monoclonal antibodies for “lung congestion” seen on CT scans.  

To be fair, opponents of the former president have questioned his transparency regarding diet, stress level, insufficient sleep and exercise. But Trump does golf regularly, has a low blood pressure, doesn’t drink or smoke, and has a low cholesterol on medication. He had a normal exercise stress test while president, and yes, he did take a 30-question cognitive exam and did well. His most recent health report was glowing though sparse on details.

I have been asking for a full and transparent evaluation of the health of our current president, since even before he became president. The elaborately worded yearly physicals reported by Dr. Kevin O’Connor (including the most recent one in February) are not medically satisfying. They lack any mention of cognitive testing or MRI scans of the brain, despite the president’s frequent memory lapses, periods of disorientation and inability to complete sentences. 

Clearly, there is obfuscation going on. 

Many in the media have focused on Parkinson’s Disease as a possible explanation, despite O’Connor denying it specifically in the president’s last two physicals and again this week in a letter. Also, the president lacks many of the physical features of Parkinson’s, such as tremors, shuffling gait, cogwheel rigidity, pill-rolling, etc. 

I would tend to believe what O'Connor writes in official documents and focus more on what he leaves out. 

President Biden has a long history of atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat) and surgical clippings of brain aneurysms in 1988 which puts him at risk of silent strokes and cognitive impairment (possibly due to vascular insufficiency, which is inadequate blood flow). This could well be the problem.  

Unfortunately, there is a long history of presidents and their staffs hiding their health from the public. But this obfuscation undermines the very foundation of our democracy. 

In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson contracted the Spanish Flu. While he was suffering from a 103-degree temperature, a terrible cough and weakness, Wilson’s doctor, Cary Grayson, lied to the press that it was only a bad cold. Like COVID a century later, this novel pathogen had a post-viral syndrome, including neurological complications that could be horrendous. 

At the Paris Peace Conference with French President Georges Clemenceau and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George following World War One, Wilson was in a weakened state and actually hallucinated at one point that the French Foreign Legion was coming to arrest him. Wilson eventually recovered, but lacking his usual fortitude and vigor, was ineffective at standing up for the rights of Germany and its citizens as planned. As a result, Clemenceau chastised Germany economically, which ultimately led to World War Two. 

Wilson subsequently suffered a severe stroke, and in the final days of his presidency whispered instructions to his wife, who was ultimately running the country unbeknownst to the public. 

History repeated itself during Franklin D. Roosevelt's fourth term. Roosevelt suffered from out-of-control blood pressure and fatigue for months before his fatal cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945. Churchill and Stalin noted this and tried their best to support his health towards the end of World War Two, but the American public was once again not aware. 

Roosevelt’s death thrust Harry Truman into office, an inexperienced leader who had to orchestrate the end of World War Two (including dropping the atomic bomb on Japan) in Roosevelt’s stead.

When President Eisenhower was hospitalized for a heart attack in September 1955, Dr. Paul Dudley White, a top cardiologist from Massachusetts General Hospital, was not only transparent with the American public and put the heart attack risks and recovery in perspective, but he also used it as a teaching moment to educate America about heart attacks in general. 

This should have been a turning point in terms of transparency, but unfortunately, it wasn’t. We didn’t know about President Kennedy’s excruciating back pain and Addison’s Disease, the reported cocktail of mood-stabilizing medications that President Nixon reportedly took or the large amount of blood loss sustained by Reagan when he was shot.

The public has a right to know. And knowing helps to separate a true democracy from a banana republic.

Marc Siegel, M.D., is a professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health. He is a Fox News medical correspondent and author of the new book, “COVID; The Politics of Fear and the Power of Science.”