Hillary Clinton’s health is nothing to worry about, the Democratic presidential candidate’s physician said in a letter released by her campaign on Wednesday. Her campaign had been pressed to be more transparent about Clinton’s health, particularly after it failed to reveal her Friday pneumonia diagnosis until Sunday, when she almost collapsed as she left the Ground Zero site in NY.
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It was only then that her campaign confirmed she had been diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday, prompting aides to acknowledge they had mishandled communication on the subject.
Clinton has failed to provide the public access to her full medical records, but her opponent 70-year-old Donald Trump has been even more opaque even though he would be the oldest first-term president ever elected.
Only bacterial pneumonia, not viral, can be treated with antibiotics. “She was advised to see me when she returned from her travels for further testing”, Bardack wrote in the letter.
Ms Clinton has spent the past three days out of the public eye, recuperating at her suburban NY home.
Mrs. Clinton first visited Dr. Bardack on September 2 and complained of a fever, congestion and fatigue.
Both candidates, among the oldest ever to run for the White House, were under intense pressure to share more medical information after Clinton fell ill during a 9/11 ceremony in NY on Sunday and was forced to leave.
The former secretary of state’s personal physician Lisa Bardack said Mrs Clinton “continues to remain healthy and fit to serve as president of the United States”, in a two-page “summary update” on Mrs Clinton’s health.
In any case, his off-the-cuff remark about Hillary Clinton on Wednesday night wasn’t just based on the lie that she is unfit to serve, but it was also terribly inappropriate – especially when Trump’s own health is questionable.
Clinton was forced to take a break from the campaign trail this week, canceling scheduled trips to California and Nevada.
Bardack, in her letter about Clinton, wrote: “She is recovering well with antibiotics and rest”. She had a normal mammogram and breast ultrasound and shows no signs of developing heart disease, which runs in her family.
Additional health records released with the letter show that Ms Clinton’s cholesterol and blood pressure are within normal ranges. “I think she’s in excellent health for her age”, she tells Yahoo Beauty. She said she thought she “could power through It”, but that “didn’t work out so well”.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, has said he is planning to release details this week of a recent physical.
In a snippet teased on the site, Mehmet Oz – who is also a professor of surgery at Columbia University in NY – is seen asking Trump: “If your health is as strong as it seems. why not show your medical records?” Clinton’s campaign said the information would update a health history released a year ago. Clinton takes medication for an underactive thyroid, which has been stable for years, Clarinex for her allergies, a vitamin B12 supplement and the blood thinner Coumadin following a 2012 blood clot in her head.
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According to the letter, Clinton was diagnosed with a sinus infection and subsequently an ear infection in January 2016, in the lead-up to the critically important Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Later, a tube was placed in her left ear as part of the treatment.
