There are indications that the handlers of the President may be going to claim that he has Parkinson’s Disease (PD). See here and here. Their thinking is likely that this will give the President a reason to bow out gracefully. Not only can no one be faulted for getting PD, but also the public would be sympathetic to him and his family.
I’m not a medical professional, and I also do not play one on TV. However, my wife has had PD for 5+ years.
My experience with PD is based on such realities as: 1) I have been her primary and sole caregiver, 2) I’m a scientist, so look at such matters from a scientific perspective, 3) I have attended all of her physician meetings (e.g., neurologists) over this period, 4) I have attended PD support group meetings, 5) I have read hundreds of articles regarding PD, 6) I have analyzed over a hundred studies about PD, 7) I got her into two PD Random Control Trials (RCTs), 8) I heavily participated in said RCTs. Etc…
I have two brief observations…
First, cognitive decline is NOT a typical PD symptom. Here is the list of PD symptoms from the Mayo Clinic, and another from the Parkinson’s Foundation. Note that neither one of their lists identifies cognitive impairment as a typical PD symptom. (FYI, my wife has had no cognitive issues.)
Now look at what the Mayo Clinic says are the symptoms of Alzheimer’s — almost all of them are cognitive matters! It would seem that if they want to come up with a medical explanation, Alzheimer’s is more consistent with the President’s behavior.
So why don’t they say that? IMO it’s likely that they know that Alzheimer’s would be a much stronger indictment of the President’s mental competency, and require immediate remedial action.
PD would be seen as less severe and less urgent. Also, since most people are not familiar with the specifics of PD, they would be inclined to accept such a diagnosis, coming from authoritative figures, and would disregard the obvious inconsistencies (think COVID-19 policies).
Second, we should be aware that the President is medically one of the most closely monitored people in the entire country. Daily. To now say that the President has an advanced case of PD would be a major indictment of his medical team’s competence — as PD always has multiple tell-tale early signs (e.g., see the above two lists), years before it reaches the advanced stage that the President apparently has.
Would his medical doctors know that he had PD and not say anything publicly? Maybe, but they certainly would have told him what was going on, several years ago. That he would not have said anything — and not taken all the recommended PD treatments (like Rock Steady Boxing) — would be deceptive to citizens, counter-productive to his health, and dereliction of duty as the leader of the free world.
The Bottom Line
Regretfully, these medical hypotheses have the ring of ferreting around for what is the most politically palatable explanation, rather than what is the truth.
Based on what I know about PD, it seems very unlikely that the President has it.
On the other hand, Alzheimer’s appears to be much more likely.
Again, his team of medical experts would have told him about this quite a while ago. If he was made aware of this major handicap, what were his obligations about informing citizens, and about continuing in his extraordinarily important position — e.g., protecting the safety and welfare of 300+ million people?
Here are other materials by this scientist that you might find interesting:
Check out the Archives of this Critical Thinking substack.
WiseEnergy.org: discusses the Science (or lack thereof) behind our energy options.
C19Science.info: covers the lack of genuine Science behind our COVID-19 policies.
Election-Integrity.info: multiple major reports on the election integrity issue.
Media Balance Newsletter: a free, twice-a-month newsletter that covers what the mainstream media does not do, on issues from COVID to climate, elections to education, renewables to religion, etc. Here are the Newsletter’s 2024 Archives. Please send me an email to get your free copy. When emailing me, please make sure to include your full name and the state where you live. (Of course, you can cancel the Media Balance Newsletter at any time - but why would you?
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