Clinton’s health needs dose of transparency

She needs to release medical records

Back in 2008, I traveled to a hotel just outside of Phoenix and joined other journalists and medical experts for an unprecedented viewing of Republican Sen. John McCain’s health records.

Much of the news media seemed eager to report that there was a chance of recurrence of his melanoma, which could have been big enough news to derail his chances. Instead, the records showed he had remained entirely free of disease, and the chance of a recurrence was remote.

Flash forward to 2015, when another public figure, who is 67 years old, just announced her presidential candidacy. Journalists deserve the same opportunity to pore over Hillary Clinton’s medical records, but will we get the chance? When she developed a blood clot outside her brain in 2012 after a fall, I contacted her neurologist but was not given the same access to information I had when I was working on a story for

The Washington Post and interviewing former president Bill Clinton’s heart surgeon after his bypass surgery in 2004.

Hillary Clinton’s blood clot might have formed due to rest after her head trauma and a concussion, and not a direct result of her fall. She was placed on blood thinners and, with a prior history of a clot in her leg, she is likely to still be on them. She could have an underlying tendency to form blood clots.

In the wake of her health prob- lems, Clinton has said that she would share medical information with reporters. Whether she will be as open as McCain or keep disclosure to the absolute minimum, as has been the trend among recent presidents and presidential candidates, remains to be seen.

Regardless, the public deserves to see detailed medical information and to receive answers to basic health questions for any prospective president with a history of problems. I have never been satisfied by a single-page affirmation letter from candidate Barack Obama’s physician.

Don’t get me wrong, a history of medical problems should not automatically disqualify a candidate and might even make a leader more sensitive to the daily health struggles the rest of us face. When it comes to Clinton, sponsor of failed health care legislation in the 1990s, one can only hope that suffering through her own illnesses will help her realize that she has access to the kind of care most patients don’t receive.

I can’t wait to get my hands on her health records, but I am not looking for a reason to derail her unless there is a significant issue she is hiding that would significantly interfere with her ability to function as president.

I am hoping this can be an election of ideas, not one of false promises, nor one where medical limitations are a deciding factor. But as with McCain, we need to have the facts.