Quick thoughts on the latest Biden health reports
Some context on the Parkinson's expert who examined the president
There have been several news reports in the past few days — prompting a clash in the White House briefing room on Monday — about a neurologist and his repeated trips to the White House.1
The dust-up centered on Dr. Kevin Cannard, a longtime doctor in the military health system who specializes in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.2
Late Monday night, the White House confirmed that Dr. Cannard has examined the president for his three annual physicals, where the doctor ruled out Parkinson’s and other serious neurological disorders. The White House has said that those are the only visits where Biden has been seen by a neurologist, and that he is not being treated for Parkinson’s. Dr. Cannard’s other recent visits, the White House said, were to provide care to other people on campus.
You can read more in my piece with Yasmeen Abutaleb at The Washington Post.
The media’s facing a lot of scrutiny on Biden-related stories — compounded by the challenges of reporting on presidential health — so I want to be extra-transparent.
Like other news outlets, The Post had looked into Dr. Cannard’s visits but we had held off on a story; we decided to wait until we knew why he was visiting the White House before determining if it was actually newsworthy. My colleagues and I had been making calls for a few days, trying to answer that question.
Then the White House announced last night that, yes, Dr. Cannard had seen the president, an announcement we chose to write up. Our story also has context that I haven’t seen in quick skims of other coverage, and I wanted to flag a couple points.
A few things we know
Like many reporters, I have real questions about the 81-year-old president’s health.
It was obvious to anyone who watched the debate that Biden was struggling for words, losing his train of thought and having other problems. The White House has also shielded Biden from scrutiny for years, claiming that the president was always sharp behind closed doors — claims that haven’t held up the more we dig.
It’s also true that Dr. Cannard is an expert in diseases like Parkinson’s, and that he’s made frequent visits to the White House. I don’t know exactly what he did there or who he treated, beyond his exam with Biden.
So I can understand why reporters’ antennae went up with the first inkling that Dr. Cannard was visiting the White House.
But I didn’t see this detail in other stories about Dr. Cannard: he has apparently gone to the White House dozens of times dating back to when he became the on-call neurologist over a decade ago.
I went through old White House visitor logs and found that Dr. Cannard made numerous visits to the Obama White House in 2012, for instance.
Dr. Cannard met with then-President Obama’s physicians and helped with the president’s physical too. Is anyone suggesting that those visits were because President Obama secretly had Parkinson’s?
I also spoke to medical staff who have worked in the White House over multiple administrations and know Dr. Cannard or are familiar with his work.
Those former White House medical staffers made another point that I haven’t seen reported elsewhere: many of Dr. Cannard’s visits to the White House were focused on broader neurology treatments, like botox shots for senior officials suffering from migraines. As the White House’s longtime neurology consultant, much of his work seemingly wasn’t focused on Parkinson’s at all.
A few things we don’t know
Does it make sense to be concerned about President Biden’s health? Yes. Many medical experts, including some people who treated him in the White House, have said they were alarmed about his performance at the debate and would have ordered him a cognitive test.
Have some of those doctors suggested that the president’s apparent symptoms resembled Parkinson’s? Yes — I mentioned that in my prior Substack post, before this blowup over Dr. Cannard.
Has the White House been fully transparent about how medical staff are evaluating President Biden, such as why his personal physician has never seen fit to give him a cognitive exam? Definitely not.
These are high-stakes questions, and at The Post, we’re working hard to find answers while reporting carefully and thoughtfully. I’ll try to be as transparent as I can along the way too.
I was traveling most of Monday with a toddler so missed nearly all of the fuss over Dr. Cannard, including whatever people were saying on Twitter.
After our story posted, I saw responses on social media that Dr. Cannard isn’t an expert in Parkinson’s disease. That would be news to the academic journals that have published the multiple papers he’s co-authored on Parkinson’s, let alone any patients he’s presumably treated over the decades.
https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/neurologist-comments-on-biden-s-health-214449221701
This Tom Llamas interview with a neurologist presents the truth that any doctor or medical student can easily see -- as this doctor says "from across the mall."
Both candidates have cognitive issues.
It's insulting to us out here in the hinterlands to have elected representatives spin what our "lying eyes" can plainly see. When the national media go along with these lies, it further erodes any confidence in government and the "free" press's watchdog role.
Like the old joke says, "If you lie to the government, it's a crime. When the government lies to you, it's politics."
Now, please do a write-up on what Ronny Jackson did or did not do as #45’s doctor.
And write extensively on what hundreds of medical experts have diagnosed about what’s ailing/warping #45. And what they published about their diagnoses in giant, signed ads/articles.
And media needs to counterbalance this frenzy about Biden taking a cognitive exam with calls to have #45 take an exam again.
This time, an exam where they hold #45 in an area long enough to have any secret drugs wear off. And then have a neutral party witness a drug test just before #45’s cognitive test. Then have a panel of experts witness the new cognitive test, to replace Ronny Jackson’s “person, man, woman, TV, camera” one.
Media needs to refocus their efforts to inform the voters’ mind instead on the existential threat posed by #45’s megalomaniacal NPD, which was amped up by all the drugs reputedly fed him by Jackson in the White House, & by who knows which compromised doctors since #45 lost the 2020 election.
Media’s been negligent by ignoring #45’s off-the-rails comments & verbal meltdowns at rallies, his dystopian Project 2025, etc., all while climbing up the ivy at the White House to peek inside at how Biden’s doing.
And media’s not been calling for the adjudicated rapist (a close friend of Epstein’s & frequent flier on his Lolita Express plane, plus multiply-accused serial sexual predator aside from judgement in case he lost), adjudicated thief of charity, adjudicated “university” fraudster, multiple-bankruptcy-declaring (after being multiply-sued by contractors he stiffed) escapee of debt, adjudicated eponymous-business fraudster (who owes close to half-billion in penalties for that fraud), twice-impeached failure as president, Jan 6 Committee condemned instigator of insurrection, fake-electors’ un-indicted co-conspirator, and top-secret-document thief to drop out of the race. Why not?