President Joe Biden is keeping his campaign promise to be cagey about his health as the White House dithers on the patient in chief’s next doctor’s visit.
Biden, who at 78 was the oldest U.S. commander in chief to be inaugurated, has not updated his public medical records since December 2019, and pressure is mounting on the White House to disclose more about his health.
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Despite calls for more transparency, secrecy regarding presidential health is a political norm that spans chief executives of both parties, according to historian and author David Pietrusza.
Chester Arthur was secretly diagnosed with Bright’s disease, which affected his kidneys. Grover Cleveland had a mouth tumor removed during a hush-hush operation on a yacht off of New York’s Long Island. And Theodore Roosevelt kept his partial blindness under wraps after being punched in the face during a White House boxing match.
While Warren Harding was ill before he ran for the White House and died in office.
But the most famous examples of presidential medical secrecy were notched under Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy.
“The public knew of Wilson’s strokes, but not of his previous fragile health, including a pre-presidential stroke and impaired vision in one eye and a very limited work schedule,” he told the Washington Examiner, alluding to the fabricated 1920 New York World interview.
“FDR’s infirmity was, of course, downplayed to an immense extent,” he added, referring to how the Secret Service built ramps for Roosevelt’s wheelchair and temporarily raised roads using trestles and scaffolding. “Worse, FDR was in absolutely terrible shape when he ran again in 1944 and may even have been suffering from a cancerous melanoma that spread to his brain.”
And Kennedy’s back pain was exacerbated by the cortisone regime he was prescribed in 1947 to treat his Addison’s disease, Pietrusza said, quoting from his book,1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon: The Epic Campaign that Forged Three Presidencies.
After he was reduced to hobbling around Congress on crutches, Kennedy underwent spinal surgery in 1954 that was so cutting-edge it was included in the American Medical Association journal under a pseudonym, Pietrusza added. Police suspect questions over why Kennedy spent so long away from the Senate recovering motivated break-ins at his physicians’ offices before the 1960 Democratic nominating convention.
Biden’s 2019 health records, a three-page letter from his doctor, revealed he takes medication for an irregular heartbeat and high cholesterol and that he deals with acid reflux and seasonal allergies. It also noted a prior disclosure that he takes blood thinners but shed new light on operations for an enlarged prostate and “for various sports medicine and orthopedic injuries.” Biden went under the knife in 1988 for two brain aneurysms.
Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, did circulate emailed statements during the campaign concerning Biden’s COVID-19 tests and when the president-elect fractured his foot after tripping over one of his dogs. But the 2019 three-page letter pales in comparison to the 49-page release Biden made in 2008, when he was vying to become former President Barack Obama’s No. 2.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has been repeatedly needled on when Biden will disclose more recent details about his health amid glowing feature articles covering his exercise preferences, including weightlifting and riding a stationary Peloton bicycle.
“I don’t have an update at this moment. But certainly, when he has his next medical appointment, we will be transparent about that and provide that information to all of you,” she said this month. “I don’t — I’m not aware of one being scheduled.”
A month earlier, she had pledged to “check” with her colleagues about a possible document dump and that she would advise reporters about a potential timeline “in short order.”
During the campaign, Biden indicated he and his aides may not be immediately transparent about some health issues after being asked about his approach following former President Donald Trump’s hospitalization with COVID-19. The then-candidate had urged Trump to be more open about his COVID-19 diagnosis.
“I can understand there could be certain circumstances relating to national security, where every detail would not be made available in the middle of a particular crisis,” he said last fall during a town hall. “But sometimes, for a president, that would come after the fact.”
Biden’s hesitation about his health risks creating a problematic transparency narrative for his White House.
First lady Jill Biden, for instance, last month underwent a planned, though still unknown, mystery medical procedure.
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“We put out a note yesterday that she returned to the White House and resumed her daily activities,” Psaki said at the time.
