...it is understandable that a nation obsessed with health is obsessed with the health of its presidential runners. Mr. Trump’s doctor declared he’s the healthiest presidential candidate ever. Mr. Trump has drawn attention to his super health by pointing to the size of his hands – by Mr. Trump’s standards a rather decorous allusion. It matters not what has hypertrophied Mr. Trump’s hands, what matters is that Mr. Trump’s large hands signal vigor and imagination...
It is Mrs. Clinton who is in the crossfire of Health McCarthyites. Many have diagnosed her ill health merely by looking at her. This is an extraordinary feat by the lay public, which physicians can’t achieve even after years of training. Perhaps I’m not staring at her intently enough, but I can’t detect pallor or icterus in Mrs. Clinton. I do detect boredom in her. Rather than the vigor I expect to see in her in the last lap of becoming the first female president, Mrs. Clinton’s physiognomy is of a runner who has hit the wall at mile 17 of a marathon...
Perhaps presidential candidates will have to be approved by the FDA – after all presidents can be a safety issue for the public, just like a new drug or device. Perhaps bioethicists will have the first word on suitability of the candidate for presidency, bioethicists are always looking for things to do...
Recently, a chap in a solemn tone said “I’m really worried about Hillary’s health. We’re not talking about a hospital administrator. We’re talking about the commander-in-chief.”...
Concern about a candidate’s health is the latest of objective, data-driven, façades where prejudice peacefully thrives. It is a circus show which distracts us from the main issue, which is that neither candidate offers a bold economic platform for the future. In America’s strangest election till date, the public are grasping the last bastions of objectivity. They’re grasping at straws and behaving very strangely. It is a clownish effort befitting a clownish election.
From my comment under Dr. Jha's post:
How has it come to pass that the two most despised national figures are the last ones standing for U.S. President in 2016? A pompous, vulgar, dangerously belligerent ignoramus and con man vs. a slippery, knife-fighting inside-player control freak who also thinks the rules don't apply to HER?Read all of Dr. Jha's post.
I attended HIMSS14 in Orlando on a press pass. Hillary was Keynoting. They wouldn't even let us in the registered media attendees into the keynote ballroom to cover her. We had to watch it from a monitor in the press room -- where I caught a lame rebuke from a staffer for simply shooting a pic of Her Serene Eminence on the monitor.
I posted it anyway. Bite me.
The prior year, while covering HIMSS13 in New Orleans, I had zero trouble shooting pics of hubby ex-Prez Bill Clinton's Keynote (albeit under the creepy steely gaze of the Secret Service).
The 2016 Presidential race is giving me a serious headache.
And, I'm seriously distracted this week. I'd just returned from Baltimore where I was visiting my son and grandson when this happened in the evening:
He slipped out through the garage while we were putting out the trash, and simply disappeared. By the time we realized what had just happened, it was too late. We never even saw him go. Ugh. He was not wearing his collar and tags. He has a chip, which maps to the veterinary clinic in Las Vegas where our dogs had always been seen 'til I retired and moved to CA in 2013. I've alerted them.
We found Jaco on the I-95 and Jones freeway ramp in Vegas in 2003, a freaked-out lost puppy about to get killed in traffic. He's now 14 and on a kidney Rx diet. Heartsick times at the moment in my house. It's now the 15th as I write. He's not come back nor has he turned up in any shelters. Repeated car and foot trips around the 'hood have also turned up empty.
UPDATE
Back on topic. New at STATnews:
If my health as an anesthesiologist has to be painstakingly vetted, so should a president’s
By CATHERINE M. MULLALY
If you’re having surgery today, you’ll meet me, or one of my colleagues — an anesthesiologist in blue scrubs. I will put you to sleep, monitor your vital signs like a hawk, keep you pain-free, and, when the operation is over, return you to consciousness as if nothing had ever happened.
Why do you trust me with your life?
First, you trust me because of the credentials “MD Anesthesiologist” you see spelled out on my hospital badge. Second, you trust me because of what you don’t see. Long before we met, my health record was checked for you. Like coffee grounds in a French press, my medical history and medical record were squeezed through review boards to make sure that I am fit to safely care for you...
"Disclosures matter because they eliminate the uncertainty in not knowing about a candidate’s health. The president of the United States of America presides over the largest economy and military in the world. Market stability and international security depend on that predictable leadership. Uncertainty, real or perceived, in a president’s health may be seen as weakness on the international stage and an opportunity to exploit or attack."____________
More to come...
No comments:
Post a Comment