Most people would agree that your health records are very personal. If you were applying for a job you might be offended and consider it an invasion of your privacy if your potential employer asked to see them. Yet, it has become commonplace for us to have Presidential candidates release their health records. They are, in essence held to a different standard for better or worse. That's why it was so unusual for the McCain campaign to only release his health records for a 3 hour period of time and only to a select group of journalists. What was surprising to me was that there were over 1173 pages of health records for the past 8 years alone. That's a lot of health issues by just about any measure, almost 150 pages of health records per year! I don't think I am alone in thinking that it is disingenuous to only release them for 3 hours. No one could review all that material in that time.
Obviously the McCain campaign doesn't want to make his health an election issue, but now a group of activists are making it one and with good reason. McCain has had an awful lot of illness including reoccurring melanoma. Some have argued that his choice of a rather inexperienced running mate makes the issue ever more important. But this video makes a compelling case for a full release of his health records without mentioning Sarah Palin.
One final note: you can get a daily dose of science policy news at SEA Action Fund.
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Beyond the possible health concerns, there's the obvious fact that McCain is, simply, a wind sock. Whatever the prevailing attitude is in any given room, that's what he thinks.
Change of venue = change of mind for him, quite literally. I've observed that behavior in him for years, as an Arizonan. He's unbelievably easy to manipulate.
President? [shudder]
No matter what you think of his politics, we have every right to be concerned about his chances of surviving a four-year term. If he were in his fifties, or even sixties, this might be a privacy or discrimination issue, but he's 72. There's a reason many workplaces have a mandatory retirement age.
Considering his 'confusion' regarding the Spanish PM (apparently he's not sure if Spain is an ally or not) http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/217710.php, plus a bizzare aside about oil rigs and fish http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/did-you-hear-one-about-fish-and-oil…, we have good reason to worry. Of course, choosing Palin should have tipped us off....
I am a Physician Assistant with over 5 years experience caring for demented patients in a nursing home. Also, I lived for nine years with my father-in-law who suffers dementia.
I am very concerned that McCain's repeated misstatements and gaffes may signal a dementing illness.
Signs of dementia include memory loss, poor concentration, difficulty learning new things, difficulty with language and poor judgement. American males 71 or older have an 11% risk of dementia based solely on their age. (See studies and statistics available from the Alzheimer's Association) Combine the fact of that risk with the behavior and mistakes McCain repeatedly shows and I think it is easy to make the case that we voters must demand McCain provide evidence of recent cognitive testing from his medical records. Many of us can remember Reagan showing signs of his disease while in ofice. Do we really want that again at this juncture in history, with Palin as VP?
Michael Gilman PA-C
Yuma, AZ
Holy Shit!
That list is just freaky.
I'm surprised there isn't some kind of long term health commitment needed for such an important public office role.
Let's hope amendments to the law don't happen as result of McCain carking it on the job.
John McCain is Sailing to Byzantium
with apologies to William Butler Yeats
by Jonathan Vos Post
Copyright (c) 2008 by Emerald City Publishing
That is no country for old men. The young
watching Joel and Ethan Coen's bloody repurposing,
In one another's arms, including gay marriage,
and safe sex, and just playing Twister,
birds in the trees - and binary trees optimized,
Those dying generations - at their song,
dying in Afghanistan, dying in Iraq,
where we'll need to be for a thousand years,
listening to hip-hop, to Huckabee on the Fender bass,
with sax solo by Hillary's husband, what was his name,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
the streets of Cloverfield, I mean Manhattan
on 9/11, the punchline of every posturing by
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long,
or however long it takes to winnow the field,
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
Oh, forget the intellect thing. Too close
to nuclear peanut-farmer wimp Jimmy Carter,
egghead Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson,
no, we'll quote Thomas Jefferson, the only
scientist ever President, and pretend that
he would support Intelligent Design today,
and was an avatar of Reagan. That's the ticket.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing,
and sing with Gospel back-up (take that Obama!)
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
or Pants-suit in the case of Hillary,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
Which is Winner Take All in delegates.
O sages standing in God's holy fire,
which has thermodynamic temperature
technically exceeding infinity,
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
the gold standard being a Good Thing,
and my being a Fiscal Conservative,
at least compared to Holy Roman
Emperor Bush II, and his boss Cheney,
and whom I could have beaten, were
it not for those dirty tricks, but I beat
him in the same venue this time,
so never mind, this is Destiny,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
which is some sort of helix thing, like DNA,
or the serpent in the Garden of Eden,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal,
which is what a bad VP pick would be,
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Eternity meaning 8 years in office,
until we amend the constitution to
let me run a third time, maybe with
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (CA, R).
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
and I don't mean tree-hugger Organic natural,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
as a beta-test for iPod or iPhone, iGuess,
To lords and ladies of Byzantium,
and my mother is 95 years old and feisty,
so don't give me that age-ist nonsense
about "That is no country for old men"
because I am not too old, and sing along
to my victory march, or if you can't sing,
at least clap your hands and hum,
Richard Feynman's ghost on the bongo drum,
as my bandwagon sweeps to glory,
wrinkled fingers on the Lyre strum,
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Yeah i have heard that too.
This is a really good discussion! Thanks for the viewpoints