An professional on Parkinson’s illness from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center visited the White House eight occasions in eight months from final summer time by this spring, together with a minimum of as soon as for a gathering with President Biden’s doctor, based on official customer logs.
The professional, Dr. Kevin Cannard, is a neurologist who specializes in motion problems and lately printed a paper on Parkinson’s. The logs, launched by the White House, doc visits from July 2023 by March of this yr. More current visits, if there have been any, wouldn’t be launched till later underneath the White House’s voluntary disclosure coverage.
It was unclear whether or not Dr. Cannard was at the White House to seek the advice of particularly about the president or was there for unrelated conferences. Dr. Cannard’s LinkedIn web page describes him as “supporting the White House Medical Unit” for greater than 12 years. His biography on Doximity, an internet site for health professionals, lists him as a “neurology consultant to the White House Medical Unit and the physician to the president” from 2012 to 2022, which would come with the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump.
Records from the Obama administration, when Mr. Biden was vice chairman, present that Dr. Cannard made a minimum of 10 visits in 2012 plus a household tour; 4 in 2013; one in 2014; 4 in 2015; and eight in 2016. Mr. Trump rescinded Mr. Obama’s voluntary White House guests disclosure coverage, so data usually are not accessible for his 4 years in workplace.
Dr. Cannard didn’t reply to repeated requests for remark. The White House wouldn’t remark particularly on the function of Dr. Cannard’s current visits or whether or not they had been associated to the president. “A wide variety of specialists from the Walter Reed system visit the White House complex to treat the thousands of military personnel who work on the grounds,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, mentioned in a press release.
Without discussing Dr. Cannard particularly, Mr. Bates mentioned the president “has been seen by a neurologist once a year” as a part of his total annual bodily checkup and “that examination has found no sign of Parkinson’s and he is not being treated for it.” He declined to supply dates of any conferences between Mr. Biden and any of his specialists however mentioned that “there have been no neurologist visits besides the one for his physical per year, three in total” throughout his three and a half years in workplace.
At her common briefing later in the day, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, refused to reply questions on Dr. Cannard’s visits, saying she wouldn’t talk about specialists who come to the White House out of concern for his or her “privacy” and “security,” despite the fact that Dr. Cannard lists his affiliation with the White House on a public web site.
Dr. Cannard met on Jan. 17 with Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House doctor, in addition to Dr. John Atwood, a heart specialist at Walter Reed, and one other person in the early night in the White House residence clinic, the logs confirmed. That assembly got here a month earlier than Mr. Biden underwent his most up-to-date annual bodily checkup at Walter Reed on Feb. 28.
In a six-page letter launched after that checkup, Dr. O’Connor mentioned the president’s medical group had performed “an extremely detailed neurologic exam” that had yielded “no findings which would be consistent with” Parkinson’s, stroke or different central neurological problems. Dr. O’Connor didn’t say whether or not the examination contained widespread checks for assessing cognitive decline or detecting indicators of dementia which might be usually really useful for older adults.
The White House has mentioned in current days that there was no purpose to conduct additional examination since February. Questions about Mr. Biden’s health, and particularly about Parkinson’s, have proliferated since his disastrous debate efficiency in opposition to Mr. Trump on June 27. In interviews with ABC News on Friday and MSNBC on Monday, Mr. Biden mentioned he had the equal of a neurological examination on daily basis due to the pressure of presidential duties.
The customer logs, which have additionally been reported by different information organizations, together with The New York Post and The Guardian, indicated that Dr. Cannard’s first recorded go to to the White House throughout the Biden administration was on Nov. 15, 2022. The data point out that he was visiting Joshua Simmons, whose title is just not listed.
Dr. Cannard’s eight newer visits started on July 28, 2023, when he was listed as assembly with Megan Nasworthy, a White House liaison to Walter Reed. She was listed as the person visited for seven of these conferences, which constantly occurred early, between 7 and 9 a.m. on Fridays, with the exception of the final assembly, which occurred on Thursday, March 28, the day earlier than Good Friday. The logs be aware a 10th go to that seemed to be for a household tour of the White House.
Mr. Bates, the White House spokesman, mentioned that whereas the president all the time travels with common docs, “he has not seen specialists in Delaware,” the place he has personal residences.
Around the time of the first conferences, Dr. Cannard published a research paper in the journal Parkinsonism & Related Disorders on the early levels of Parkinson’s.
An array of neurologists who haven’t personally examined Mr. Biden mentioned they noticed signs in his public appearances that had been per Parkinson’s or a associated illness, comparable to hypophonic speech, ahead flexed posture, a shuffling gait, masked face and irregular speech sample. But they emphasised {that a} particular analysis couldn’t be given with out firsthand examination.
White House officers mentioned that Mr. Biden had proven no indicators of Parkinson’s and that Dr. O’Connor discovered no purpose to re-evaluate Mr. Biden for the illness since his bodily in February. Mr. Bates additionally mentioned the president has by no means taken Levodopa or different medication for that situation.
In his interview with ABC News on Friday, Mr. Biden declined to comply with an impartial neurological and cognitive examination. “I get a cognitive test every day,” he mentioned, which means that the distinctive challenges of the presidency successfully examined him each day.
Calling into “Morning Joe” on MSNBC on Monday morning, Mr. Biden insisted once more that his confusion and halting efficiency at the debate had been an aberration due in half to an an infection or different minor ailment, and weren’t an indication of a bigger medical challenge.
“If there was something that was wrong that night, it’s not like it comes and that’s one night and it goes away,” he mentioned. “That’s why I’ve been out. I’ve been testing myself, testing everywhere I go. Going out and making the case. The night of that debate, I went out. I was out until 2 o’clock in the morning that very night. That very night. It drives me nuts, people talking about this.”
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