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Saturday, March 24, 2007It can't be easy to deal with news like that in the public eye. It's hard enough in privacy. But, for those in the public eye, there are taunts and death wishes to also contend with. And sometimes, even if you are not terminally ill, but are particularly despised by the partisans, there are mindless conjectures about your health, such as appeared in the most recent issue of The New Republic. Titled "Heart of Darkness, Dick Cheney's mind/body problem," the piece speculates that Cheney has vascular dementia, because, you know, he has vascular disease. To be sure, Mr. Cheney is what we call a vasculopath - someone with disease in just about every artery in his body. He had his first heart attack at age 37, and has had coronary artery bypass surgery and stenting as well as a defibrillator/pacemaker placed. He had aneurysms in the arteries behind his knees. That's the extent of his arterial disease, though, as presented by The New Republic. No mention of any evidence that his carotid arteries or the small vessels of his brain are compromised. No evidence of behavior suggestive of dementia, either, just lots of references to medical literature about the link between vascular disease and cognitive dysfunction. And while it's true that every vasculopath is at risk for strokes and vascular dementia, not every vasculopath suffers from same. It is an article more worthy of Kos or Huffington Post than The New Republic. (Charles Krauthammer gives it the go-over with a psychiatrist's eye here.) Hope it's not a sign of things to come from the "new" New Republic. posted by Sydney on 3/24/2007 01:25:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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