Sanders recovering from heart procedure
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is recovering from a heart procedure and has indefinitely canceled future appearances, his campaign announced Wednesday morning.
“During a campaign event yesterday evening, Sen. Sanders experienced some chest discomfort. Following medical evaluation and testing he was found to have a blockage in one artery, and two stents were successfully inserted,” the Vermont senator’s senior campaign adviser, Jeff Weaver, said Wednesday in a statement.
“Sen. Sanders is conversing and in good spirits. He will be resting up over the next few days,” the statement said, but it went on to say that the campaign would cancel events and appearances “until further notice.”
Before he was hospitalized, the 78-year-old appeared Tuesday night at a fundraiser at a restaurant in Las Vegas. He appeared far more subdued than usual, resting against the lectern at one point and asking for a chair to sit down while he fielded question about 20 minutes into his appearance.
“It’s been a long day,” he said, letting out a small sigh as he got off his feet. Sanders briskly wrapped up the session, stood and left the event about 10 minutes later.
In addition to canceling at least 10 in-person events scheduled for Las Vegas and California through Friday, the campaign postponed a planned $1.3 million television ad buy in Iowa. The commercial, Sanders’ first of the election cycle, portrayed him as a fighter for the working class. His campaign did not specify when it would put the ad on the airwaves.
Experts said it isn’t unusual for someone Sanders’ age to have arterial blockages and that stent insertions are common and relatively low-risk procedures.
Blockages tend to be driven by risk factors such as age, cholesterol levels and stress. Stents are tiny metal tubes that are inserted into arteries so blood can flow to the heart without obstruction.
“Think of it as a pipe in your sink with some buildup in it,” Dr. Howard C. Herrmann, the director of Interventional Cardiology at Penn Medicine, said of artery blockages. “The artery may have multiple areas of buildup, but then there are choke points where the buildup gets to be more than 70% or 80% and it actually blocks the blood flow, so you don’t get enough blood or oxygen to the heart muscle.”
Dr. Ron Waksman, director of cardiovascular research at MedStar Heart & Vascular Institute and a professor at Georgetown University, said it was encouraging that only one of Sanders’ arteries appears to have required treatment. “The key takeaway from the statement is that he was stable at the time of the procedure,” he said.
Cardiologist Helga Van Herle, who teaches at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, said it was impossible to draw firm conclusions on Sanders’ prognosis without more details on his condition. But she said of the stent insertion, “In general, people do very well after these procedures, especially if they’re done early on.”
The news about the independent senator, a top Democratic candidate with a devoted following, sent a jolt through the political world Wednesday morning.
Any persistent questions about health and longevity could have ramifications not just for Sanders’ campaign, but also all the Democratic front-runners and President Donald Trump.
All of the candidates in their 70s are “going to get more scrutiny if there’s any physical or mental issues that arise,” said Peter D. Hart, a longtime Democratic pollster and strategist who is neutral in the primary.