OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has called on President Joe Biden to take a cognitive exam to prove he is capable of doing the job.
“For me as a brain specialist, it was concerning to watch President Joe Biden, and it quickly became clear that I was not alone in my reaction,” the practicing neurosurgeon said in an opinion piece for CNN.
“Over the past week, I received more than a dozen calls, texts and emails from medical colleagues who, like me, specialize in the brain. It wasn’t that what we noticed was necessarily new but that it was particularly pronounced, and right from the start of the debate,” he said.
“From a neurological standpoint, we were concerned with his confused rambling; sudden loss of concentration in the middle of a sentence; halting speech and absence of facial animation, resulting at times in a flat, open-mouthed expression. To be clear, these are only observations, not in any way diagnostic of something deeper, and none of these doctors wished to suggest that was the case,” he said.
“The consensus from the doctors reaching out to me, however, was that the president should be encouraged to undergo detailed cognitive and movement disorder testing, and those results should be made available to the public,” the doctor said.
“Over the past five years, I have reported extensively on the advances in the world of treating and reducing risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia and vascular dementia. For the documentary “The Last Alzheimer’s Patient,” I even went through extensive cognitive testing to demonstrate what it entailed and determine whether I had problems with executive functioning, judgment or memory lapses, as well as blood tests to determine things like the level of abnormal proteins that may be present in my brain and my B12 levels. My sense of smell and my genetic risk factors were checked. This type of testing is not necessary for most people as a matter of routine, but every one of the brain doctors I spoke to recommended that level of examination for Biden,” he said.
The president completed his most recent physical exam in February where the White House said that a team of 20 doctors, including a neurologist, was involved and declared him to be “fit for duty.”
“It also found no evidence of Parkinson’s disease that might explain his stiff gait and decreased expression in his face. Although Parkinson’s disease is the most common cause of parkinsonism – a set of movement symptoms such as stiffness and tremor – there are other causes as well, and it was not clear in the medical report that those had been investigated,” he said.
But The New York Post reported on Saturday that this year a top neurologist, who is an expert on Parkinson’s disease, met with President Biden’s personal doctor at the White House this year.
“Dr. Kevin Cannard, a Parkinson’s disease expert at Walter Reed Medical Center, met with Dr. Kevin O’Connor, and two others at the White House residence clinic on Jan. 17, according to the records, which emerge as questions continue to swirl about the 81-year-old president’s mental health in the wake of his debate debacle last week with former President Trump,” The Post said.
“Dr. John E. Atwood, a cardiologist are Walter Reed, was also in the 5 P.M. meeting, the White House visitor logs show,” it said.
And while there is no official word that the topic of conversation was the president, former White House doctor and Republican Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson said to The Post that “it’s highly likely they were talking about Biden,” since Dr. O’Connor’s primary responsibility is the president.
“He should only be [regularly] treating the president and the first family,” he said.