Medical experts have raised concerns about whether President Joe Biden is fit to serve another term after the 80-year-old officially launched his reelection campaign.
They fear Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second stint in the White House, is already showing signs of ‘cognitive impairment’ and that the stress of another presidency could deteriorate his condition further and raise the risk of an on-screen accident.
The President’s first term has been marked by a series of high-profile gaffes, falls and visible signs of disorientation – including stumbling up the steps of Air Force One and falling off his bike in Delaware.
Biden’s yearly physical exam revealed America’s oldest President is suffering from seven conditions, including a heart condition that makes the muscle beat too fast, causing dizziness and confusion. He has also suffered two brain aneurysms.
Dr Elena Mucci, a geriatric doctor and American College of Physicians member, said: ‘If I was his geriatrician, I would discourage him from campaigning. I’d strongly advocate against it.’
Dr Mucci added: ‘If you were to survey healthcare professionals, geriatricians, cardiologists, I don’t think you will find a single physician who would say it’s a good thing for an 86-year-old to with the symptoms he’s demonstrated to us already to become a president, both for the sake of his own health and for the sake of his country.’
Biden has a history of atrial fibrillation, or an irregular heartbeat, which he has suffered since 2003. He takes the blood thinner apixaban, brand name Eliquis, to treat the heart condition.
Dr Mucci said: ‘If you open any medical book, one of the symptoms [of atrial fibrillation] is tiredness.
‘That will limit his activity, and not just limit his activity — he physically might not be able to perform all his duties. It’s just impossible with these conditions at that age.’
Dr Stuart Fischer, an internal medicine physician in New York, told DailyMail.com: ‘The increased risk is not only from the fibrillation but from secondary effects from the medicine.
‘These people take blood thinners and when people take these drugs, they are at risk for internal bleeding or serious consequences from a fall.’
Two months ago, Biden stumbled up the stairs of Air Force One as he headed back to the United States after a three-day visit to Europe.
He fell up the same stairs just two months into his presidency in March 2021. In June, he also fell off his bike while spending a weekend away in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Dr Fischer said the older people get, the more frequent and severe the falls become.
He said: ‘[If] someone falls and hits their head or hips while on a blood thinner, there is more of a chance of a medical emergency than for people not on anticoagulants.’
‘A head injury when someone is an anticoagulant is potentially disastrous,’ he said.
Biden’s high cholesterol was also noted in his latest health summary, which Dr Fischer said is ‘a risk factor for a heart attack, a stroke or kidney disease’.
Dr Fischer said: ‘The blood supply to the heart, kidney and brain slowly becomes impaired through the course of our lives.
‘The longer we live, the higher the chances of poor circulation.’
A poll this week by The Associated Press found that just 26 percent of Americans and 47 percent of Democrats want Biden to run for a second term.
Interviews with poll respondents suggested the main concern was his age.
A separate CNBC All-America Economic Survey said 70 percent of people said they did not want Biden to run, mainly citing his age.
Dr Fischer told DailyMail.com: ‘In a case like President Biden, there is a higher level of responsibility.
‘He would be the oldest president in history, you couldn’t be at the top of your game, in any profession. You can’t fool Mother Nature. No one can, try though we may.’
Biden has been careful not to publicly acknowledge or address concerns about his cognitive decline.
Last year he shot down claims he is too old and mentally unfit to be president. ‘Watch me,’ he told CBS correspondent Scott Pelley during an interview.
But Dr Mucci said it is common for people to downplay their cognitive difficulties.
‘Whether you’re going to lose your presidency, or lose your driving license or lose your job, subjectively, you will be under-appreciating your symptoms, and not putting enough importance to those symptoms,’ she said.
‘I think [Biden] knows exactly what is going on, but he’s not openly acknowledged it because he doesn’t want to lose that presidency.’
Biden’s health issues and old age raise his risk of dementia, according to Dr Dung Trinh, an internal medicine physician in California.
He told DailyMail.com: ‘As we get older, we lose around one percent of our brain volume per year.
‘The risk of developing Alzheimer’s for someone who’s 70 versus the risk of developing Alzheimer’s for someone who’s 65 — that risk doubles in five years.
‘If you’re in your mid 80s, 85 or beyond, probably 30 to 40 percent of folks show some mild symptoms of cognitive decline.’
Dr Todd Grande, a mental health expert in Biden’s home state of Delaware, said it was clear that Biden’s ‘performance in the areas of reasoning and memory are impaired.’
Dr Grande added: ‘It’s hard to imagine how he is fit to be president under these circumstances.’
Despite growing concerns about Biden’s mental acuity, the President’s physician gave him a nearly clean bill of health in February.
He said in a five-page report that the President remains a ‘healthy, vigorous, 80-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency’.
But the cringeworthy gaffes have persisted. This month Biden — who boasts about his Irish heritage — accidentally made reference to British forces that persecuted Irish people instead of a New Zealand rugby team while delivering a speech in Ireland.
Biden has mostly laughed off his blunders. In 2018 referred to himself as a ‘gaffe machine’.
But Dr Mucci believes they are a sign of deterioration.
‘It’s very difficult to say what we’re dealing with, is this just healthy aging? Or is this mild cognitive impairment, which is a pre-dementia. And time can tell you,’ she said.
‘If he’s having age-related changes, there will be a continuous and slow decline. It’s inevitable. However, if he’s experiencing mild cognitive impairment, the memory decline will be much faster.
‘We know that about 10 to 15 percent of people with mild cognitive impairment actually develop dementia.’
She said that even if the slips of the tongue are not a sign of an underlying issue, being an effective president at such an old age is a tall order.
‘My personal and professional opinion is probably no [he won’t be an effective leader].
‘The reason being it’s inevitable that [he] will be in a position where very important decisions have to be made in the blink of an eye, in stressful situations, in a very short period of time.
‘Someone who is in that position that you are 80 plus and you are undergoing all this age-related changes to the brain, you just might not have that brain processing speed to analyze, process and digest the information quickly enough to come up with the important decisions. That’s not been ageist, this is just common sense.’
She added: ‘He might not have dementia, he might not have mild cognitive impairment. This could be all natural aging, but someone of that status has to be sharp. Someone in his position, I don’t think it’s acceptable [to be forgetting things].’
Over the past few years, President Joe Biden has made the news for things he’s said and done – but not related to policy.
Rather the 79-year-old has had a knack for gaffes.
During speeches or while answering questions, Biden is known to make mistakes, have mix-ups or even digress.
The commander-in-chief has even been caught tripping a time or two, raising speculation about his physical health.
DailyMail.com has compiled many of Biden’s notable mis-speaks, foot-in-mouth moments and slips.
REPEATEDLY MIXING UP LIBYA AND SYRIA
Biden repeatedly confused Syria with Libya while discussing ways of working with Russia during a press conference at the G7 on June 13.
The 78-year-old gaffe machine spoke of working with Russian President Vladimir Putin to provide economic assistance to the people of Libya, prompting some confused glances from the press pack at the G7 summit in Cornwall, England.
‘I’m hopeful that we can find an accommodation where we can save the lives of people in — for example, in — in Libya,’ the president said, mentioning the north African country for the third time instead of Syria, which is in the Middle East.
The White House later brushed the confusion off, confirming that the president was indeed referring to Syria, the country where Russia and the US have been involved in a decade-long civil war.
Not all of Biden’s gaffes occurred in the 2020s or even the 2010s. In fact, some happened in the early aughts.
In September 2008, after Biden had been named former President Barack Obama’s running mate, he attended a campaign rally in Missouri.
It was there that he called on then-Missouri state senator Chuck Graham, who passed away last year. to stand up for the crowd.
‘I’m told Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up Chuck, let ’em see you,’ Biden said.
It was at that moment he realized Graham was in a wheelchair due to muscular dystrophy.
‘Oh, God love you. What am I talking about. I’ll tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal.’
According to the Columbia Tribune, Graham said he was never offended by the mistake.
