Physicians familiar with the disease can see it a mile away but you won’t get an official diagnosis out of Biden’s physician. If anything, White House physician Kevin O’Connor can be relied on to deflect concerns about the president’s health rather than leveling with the public. Dr. O’Connor is a family friend and was a business partner to Biden’s brother so there’s an integrity problem straight away.
Diagnosis a mile away
Diagnosis from a distance is probably the best we’re going to get. Dr. Tom Pitts is a quadruple board-certified neurologist in New York City. He recently spoke with NBC News.
Tom Llamas asked him, “What you’ve seen from the president over the last two years, what you saw at the debate, the last few interviews, the way he speaks, the way he maybe walks, have you noticed anything that gives you a red flag as a doctor?” Pitts responded he sees this daily among his patients. “Oh yeah, I see him 20 times a day in clinic. It’s ironic because he has just this classic features of neurodegeneration: word-finding difficulties — and that’s not just ‘Oh, I couldn’t find the right word’ — that’s from degeneration of the word retrieval area.”
Llamas asked about the stuttering. “He’s also overcome stuttering, though. Could that be a part of that, too?” Pitts said no. “This is not a palatal issue or a speech discrepancy. Plus the rigidity, monotone voice …”
A mile is enough
Pitts answer shifted to movement.
“You notice when he turns it’s kind of end-block turning; it’s not a quick turn. That’s one of the hallmarks of Parkinson’s; it’s rigidity and bradykinesia, slow movement, And he has that hallmark, especially with the low voice they said was a cold; hypophonia, small monotone voice like this over time is a hallmark of Parkinsonism. I could have diagnosed him from across the mall. Shuffling gait, we call that ‘little steps. Loss of arm swing from the rigidity; when we walk we have a nice cadence, he doesn’t really swing his arms, and end-block turning, meaning he kind of pivots around his foot. If you said, ‘Hey, President Biden,” he wouldn’t go like this.” Pitts quickly looked behind him to demonstrate.
Llamas tried to protect Biden, saying the disease is difficult to diagnose. Pitts said actually, it’s the reverse and he was blunt about it.
“It’s one of the easier movement disorders to diagnose. I’m a Democrat… This guy is not a hard case. … once you start manifesting the hallmark motor symptoms, slow movement, rigidity, masked facies, hypophonia, if a med student did not pick Parkinson’s on the test, they’d be remediated. His motor symptoms are degenerating. He has Parkinsonisms. That is a fact. He has degeneration of the brain. Show me the MRI. Show me he doesn’t. Put your money where your mouth is. He definitely has it.”
But that mile away diagnosis won’t be listened to
The President’s doctor has too many conflicts of interest. Historian Matthew Algeo spoke with Politico.
“That compounds the problem. You’re working for the guy you’re examining, and he’s your buddy. It’s just a lose-lose situation.” Bert Park is a doctor and authored “The Impact of Illness on World Leaders.” He agreed. “We cannot depend on the presidential physician to come clean. That’s a fool’s game.”
O’Connor knows where his bread is buttered so he won’t upset the apple cart. He started working with Biden during the Obama administration. The doctor was an Army colonel so he knows the ways of the military and government.
