Less than on week after the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette challenged candidates for the Keystone State's U.S. Senate seat to release their medical records, Mehmet Oz obliged.
As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said in its September 21 editorial:
Further delays in scheduling a debate between U.S. Senate candidates John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz have raised more questions about Mr. Fetterman’s health, including his ability to communicate and process information. He has increased his public appearances, but his speech remains halting, and he repeats key phrases like mantras.
To reassure the public, Mr. Fetterman ought to release the full results of his cognitive tests and other medical records, and make his doctors available to the media. Mr. Oz should release his medical records, too.
On Friday morning, Oz's campaign answered the PG's call and published a collection of doctors' letters, health records, and information on his previous diagnoses. "In the interest of full transparency over my own health, I saw my doctor again to get the most current appraisal of my health status," Oz explained. "I agree that voters should have full transparency when it comes to the health status of candidates running for office."
The years-worth of medical information leading up to this week released by Oz also includes a series of letters, starting with one in July 2014 from Dr. Rebecca Kurth following a regular checkup that found Oz in a normal, healthy condition. A DXA whole body composition scan led his doctor to conclude Oz was "super fit with ideal body composition!" In summary, Kurth said Oz was "in overall EXCELLENT health."
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Another letter from Dr. Kurth following a regular checkup in January 2018 reaffirmed that Oz was in "overall EXCELLENT health" and his bloodwork and test results showed normal/healthy levels on the key metrics.
The most recent information comes, again, from Dr. Kurth based on a checkup on September 22, 2022. Once again, Kurth reiterated that Oz is in "overall EXCELLENT health" after an exam that showed he "is healthy and the blood tests are all favorable." Kurth's notes state that Oz is "well developed, well nourished, alert, in no apparent distress" and "oriented to person, place, and time."
Along with the letter from Kurth on his latest checkup, Oz also released his latest EKG (dated 9/22/2022) that showed normal/healthy heart activity and a pathology report for a pre-cancerous polyp that was discovered during a colonoscopy conducted the same year as part of The Doctor Oz Show.
The medical records and information released by Mehmet Oz provides significantly more information on his condition than what Fetterman's team has managed to put forward. As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's editorial calling for both candidates to release their medical records noted:
So far, Mr. Fetterman’s campaign has reported a specific (and normal) score from his July Saint Louis University Mental Status Examination (SLUMS), but has said only that his more recent Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) test was “in the normal range.” The RBANS test results in distinct scores in five areas: immediate memory, visuospatial/constructional, language, attention and delayed memory. The campaign should tell voters how Mr. Fetterman performed in each category.
It would also be beneficial for voters in Pennsylvania to see the results of Fetterman's recent examinations and how medical professionals evaluate his condition now as well as his prognosis for the days and years ahead as Fetterman seeks a six-year term in the world's greatest deliberative body.
As has been the case since Fetterman won the Democrat primary for U.S. Senate earlier this year while undergoing treatment for a significant stroke and surgery to insert a pacemaker, Fetterman's campaign has been anything but transparent — even withholding the full picture of their candidate's health from Pennsylvania voters. That strategy of trying to keep Fetterman's condition cloaked in secrecy has earned the Democrat and his campaign ire from all sides, including the editorial board of the Washington Post.
Earlier in September, WaPo torched Fetterman's "unsettling" condition and resistance to debate Oz before early voting started in Pennsylvania, and also called on him to release medical records so the public can know the extent of his challenges so far and what he'll have to overcome to be an effective representative in the Senate:
Mr. Fetterman is asking voters for a six-year contract without giving them enough information to make sound judgments about whether he’s up for such a demanding job. We have called for full disclosure of health records from candidates for federal office in both parties, including Donald Trump and Joe Biden, and we believe Mr. Fetterman should release his medical records for independent review.
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