'I'm skeptical of that explanation from the White House': Physician raises alarm
Reacting to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's attempt to explain away a collection of infirmities afflicting Donald Trump in recent days, a CNN medical expert was unconvinced by what was explained.
According to Leavitt, the president suffers from chronic venous insufficiency which causes blood to pool in the veins, before adding, "The president remains in excellent health."
Speaking with host John Berman, CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner had questions of his own.
Addressing Trump's apparent edema, he pointed out, "What interesting to me about this diagnosis is that the president didn't have it three months ago when he had his annual physical exam ... where they documented that he had no edema. So, you know, while they're calling this, you know, chronic venous insufficiency, which it sounds like it's really more of an acute presentation of that, which is why the White House did a number of tests to make sure that this wasn't something more severe."
Asked by Berman, "The other thing that we heard from the White House was that the bruises on his hand and the discoloration, they say, may be caused from excessive hand shaking and the use of aspirin. What do you make of that diagnosis?" Reiner replied, "Every one of my patients takes aspirin, and I'm a little bit more skeptical about the large bruising on his hand because he shakes a lot of hands. Unless he's having some sort of, you know, vigorous handshaking."
"That's a little bit more interesting to me," he cautioned. "I see those bruises and people that take more powerful blood thinners than aspirin. Aspirin is a blood thinner, which is why we use it in in cardiac patients, but I typically see bruising when people are on stronger blood thinners. So I'm a little bit skeptical of that explanation from the White House."
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