Update: here is a link to Sanders’s medical information. As I speculated in the diary, and it turns out I was correct, it includes results from December tests, which explains the rationale for waiting until December to release this assessment.
Bernie Sanders promised to release his medical records before any primary season votes were cast. He kept that promise, as was widely reported at the time.
Long after fulfilling the promise to release his medical records, some are moving the goalposts and saying, wait, he hasn’t released enough information. The implication is that there’s something being hidden, as if his physicians are not being honest. So we have folks now clamoring to see the “long form health certificate,” as it were.
In the last presidential cycle, our candidate, Hillary Clinton, released her medical records — i.e, a description of her health status from her physician — after she had clinched the nomination.
This cycle, we are getting such information earlier.
Elizabeth Warren was the first candidate to release a letter about her health status from her physician. Like Sanders, she released this information prior to the Iowa Caucuses. Here’s an article about that from the Huffington Post (December 6):
Elizabeth Warren Is First Democratic Hopeful To Release Medical Records
You can view the letter from her doctor in that article. Here’s a similar article about Sanders releasing his medical information from the Burlington Free Press (December 31):
Bernie Sanders makes good on campaign promise, health records say he’s good to go
You can read about his medical history in that article, current test results, the medications he’s currently taking, and the assessment of his overall fitness as attested to by two cardiologists at the University of Vermont Medical Center and his regular doctor, the attending physician of the United States Congress. As stated in the article:
Sanders has made good on his promise. He released letters on Dec. 30 from his primary physician and two UVM cardiologists that said he's healthy, able to campaign without restriction and fit to serve as president.
The fulfillment of his promise was widely reported at the time.
However, now we’re seeing the goalposts being shifted. Here’s a headline from the Huffington Post (February 10):
Bernie Sanders Walks Back Promise To Release “Comprehensive” Medical Records
The writer’s claim of a broken promise hinges on the word “comprehensive,” which comes from a 2019 AP article (October 24) which the writer links to but doesn’t excerpt. Here’s what that article said:
The 78-year-old Vermont senator has repeatedly promised to release his health records at some point, but he outlined a likely timeline in an interview with The Associated Press.
“I want to make it comprehensive,” Sanders said in explaining the delay. “The answer is I will, probably by the end of the year.”
The AP article goes on to say:
Campaign manager Faiz Shakir later said more definitively that Sanders does plan to release the records by the end of December. He expects the statement from Sanders’ physician to show Sanders has made a “full recovery” from the heart attack.
The article never implies that the physician’s statement Shakir refers to would not fulfill the promise. However, the HuffPo writer is now suggesting that the promise wasn’t fulfilled, because Sanders said “comprehensive.”
Indeed, Sanders said he hadn’t yet released his health information because he wanted to “make it comprehensive.”
What exactly did Sanders have in mind when he said that?
He may well have had a number of upcoming tests, such as a stress test. He and his doctors may well have believed that such tests, as well as monitoring of his recovery as he got back on the campaign trail, were necessary in order to be able to prepare and release a comprehensive assessment of his health status. That wouldn’t be unreasonable. It would be sensible.
There is no foundation to the claim that Sanders has broken a promise, and no reason to disbelieve his physicians’ assessment of his good health status.
By all accounts, after his stent procedure, he has been more energetic than ever.
Here he is sinking 6 baskets in 38 seconds:
Here he is dancing up a storm: