2020 Democrat Michael Bloomberg released additional medical records relating to his heart and called on his presidential primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders to do the same.
The former New York City mayor’s most recent health exam occurred over the summer and included cardiac stress testing and a stress echocardiogram, according to a letter from a Johns Hopkins University doctor, which the campaign shared with CNN Thursday. The letter revealed that his left ventricular ejection fraction was “normal” and that the cavity size of his left ventricular and its functional capabilities were also “normal.”
Bloomberg’s ejection fraction, a percentage figure that measures how much blood the left ventricle pumps with each singular contraction, was measured at 60%-65%, The normal rate is between 50%-75%, according to the American Heart Association.
A campaign spokesman called on Sanders to release the same information about his left ventricular ejection fraction, which a cardiology director recently said he has yet to reveal.
“Releasing this single scientific number about heart health could start to put to rest any concerns about Sen. Sanders’s secrecy about his recent heart attack,” Stu Loeser told CNN. “Mike Bloomberg’s doctor shared Mike’s number. Will Sen. Sanders ask his doctor to do the same?”
The Sanders campaign has released three letters from three doctors saying he is in good health but has since declined to release additional medical information.
“We have released, I think … quite as much as any other candidate has. We released two rather detailed letters from cardiologists, and we released a letter that came from the head of the U.S. Congress medical group, the physicians there. So, I think we have released a detailed report, and I’m comfortable with what we have done,” Sanders said during a town hall event earlier this month, later adding, “I don’t think we will [release additional records], no.”
The two campaigns have feuded in recent weeks about each candidate’s respective health.
After Sanders announced during the town hall that he would not release additional medical reports about his health following a heart attack in the fall, a campaign spokeswoman for the Vermont senator incorrectly alleged on cable news that Bloomberg has had a heart attack.
Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey told the Washington Examiner at the time that the Sanders team “is spreading an absolute lie that Mike had heart attacks. It’s completely false.”
