Is Hillary Clinton's health less important than Trump's?

close

Video

Should Hillary Clinton's health be of concern?

Strategy Room: Ellen Ratner and Tom Basile discuss Donald Trump slamming Hillary Clinton for not being 'fit to serve' as president of the United States and how her health may be a determining factor

Imagine, if you would, that tomorrow Donald Trump suffers a concussion. Suppose he trips on a flight of stairs, falling down and hitting his head. The head injury is so severe that he is unconscious for a time and has to be hospitalized for a week.

After getting out of the hospital, the Trump campaign tells us he has fully recovered, and that there are no lingering effects of the head trauma. During the following weeks, he is seen in public to wear glasses with a Fresnel corrective lens on one side. He also seems to have trouble maintaining his balance, loses his thoughts in the middle of speeches and has episodes of spasmodic movements suggestive of seizures.

In this imaginary scenario, would it surprise anyone if the media became skeptical and pressed for release of Trump’s medical records? Would it surprise anyone if the Clinton campaign made an issue of Trump’s health status during speeches and in TV ads? Would the media cry “foul” over the Clinton campaign doing so?

The answers to these questions are self-evident. The media and the Clinton campaign would be all over this, and no one would question the appropriateness of their actions.

To my knowledge, Trump has had no such issues with his health. However, Clinton has had multiple problems -- some she has revealed and some that she has not revealed.

So why has the media not been asking Clinton to release her medical records? Is her health status less important than Trump’s?

What do we know about Clinton’s health? We know that she has suffered two deep vein thromboses and an episode of cerebral venous thrombosis.

Blood spontaneously clotting within one’s veins on three separate occasions is not a good thing. In fact, it is life-threatening. This tells us that she has a hypercoagulable state requiring the use of Coumadin (a “blood thinner”) for the rest of her life to try to prevent this from happening again. While Coumadin may prevent future blood clots, it can also lead to life-threatening hemorrhage if she has any future trauma.

We also know that she suffered a concussion and, according to her husband, she took six months to recover. How do we know she recovered?

If she was a high school athlete, she would have had mandatory neuropsychological testing before being allowed to participate in sports again. Given that being the leader of the free world is more important than playing goalie for the local high school, why is the mainstream media not demanding to see Clinton’s post-concussion testing?

We also know from the Clinton camp that she has had a right transverse venous sinus thrombosis. This has been described as a blood clot in her brain, but that is not accurate.

More specifically, it is a blood clot that formed in one of the two major veins that drain blood from the brain. Coumadin was prescribed, not to dissolve the clot (it won’t), but to prevent the clot from extending to the other transverse venous sinus, which could result in death.

However, the right transverse sinus clot by itself will cause longstanding consequences. Since there are only two veins draining blood from the brain, the blockage of one results in increased intracranial pressure, which will remain a lifelong problem for such patients.

What are the symptoms of increased intracranial pressure? The most common are headaches, visual problems, and dizziness/balance problems. We know that Clinton has had all three of these. Less commonly known are “brain fog,” problems with concentration, and short-term memory problems. Sounds familiar?

Why has the media not been inquiring about Clinton’s health records as aggressively as they did when GOP candidate John McCain had skin cancer? What do her visits to ophthalmologists and neurologists show? Has she had any neuropsychological testing, as is routinely done in traumatic brain injury cases?

We also know from the leaked Democratic National Committee emails that some of the major media outlets were in collusion with the Clinton campaign and the Democrat Party. Could this be why they have not pursued the issues of Clinton’s health? This is an important issue to be explored for any candidate of any political party.

As a concerned American, I ask the media: Would you please do your job?

Gerard Gianoli, M.D., F.A.C.S. specializes in Neuro-otology and Skull Base Surgery. He is in private practice at The Ear and Balance Institute, in Covington, Louisiana and is a Clinical Associate Professor at Tulane University School of Medicine.