By Jay Michaels
\nAmerican Thinker<\/p>\n
When Dr. Lisa Bardack[*]<\/a> was asked to become Hillary Clinton\u2019s personal physician in 2001, it had to have been a crowning moment in the career of the Mt. Kisco internist.\u00a0 Dr. Bardack could have anticipated little downside.\u00a0 She already had the responsibility — and legal obligation under HIPAA — to protect the privacy of her patient. \u00a0She and her staff would have to be especially scrupulous in the case of a senator with presidential ambitions, but this should not have posed a serious problem.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton corrupts everyone who serves her.\u00a0 And this year Bardack encountered difficulties she could not have foreseen in 2001:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 Clinton developed serious medical issues.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 The candidate was being videoed, not only during campaign stops, speeches, townhalls, and the rare press conference, but before and after events — by individuals with cell phones who were under no obligation to obey orders given to servile journalists to turn off their cameras.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 The internet not only permitted the mass distribution of these videos and photos, but it enabled those who were curious to check Bardack\u2019s reports against information available on reputable medical sites.\u00a0 It also enabled skeptical physicians to share their doubts with hundreds of thousands of readers.<\/p>\n In July 2015, the Clinton campaign asked Bardack to give the candidate a clean bill of health.\u00a0 She was to disclose, selectively, some of her patient\u2019s medical history.\u00a0 But the letter was not widely analyzed until after the disturbing September 11 video by Zdenek Gazda, the Zapruder<\/a> of 2016.\u00a0 It was no longer possible to dismiss those asking questions about Hillary\u2019s health as right-wing conspiracy theorists, and the campaign now requested a second letter from Dr. Bardack explaining the event.\u00a0 The physician duly issued a report on September 14.\u00a0 Now her real<\/em> problems began.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a look at the two letters and some of questions doctors have asked about the diagnoses and treatment.<\/p>\n I. \u00a0The letter of 12 July 2015<\/a><\/p>\n Bardack\u2019s summary revealed a couple of major health problems that had not been previously disclosed.\u00a0 We had been told that Clinton suffered an elbow fracture in 2009 and a concussion in 2012.\u00a0 The fact that a woman in her mid-60s would fall twice ought perhaps to have raised some red flags.\u00a0 In particular, unless you\u2019re being tackled or attacked, a concussion can usually be avoided by the body\u2019s reflexes.\u00a0 Arms are extended to break the fall.<\/p>\n But now the public learned that some time in 2009 and in December 2012, the month of the concussion, Clinton had suffered blood clots.<\/p>\n She already had a history of clotting.\u00a0 Running for the Presidential nomination in the fall of 2007, Hillary gave an extended interview<\/a> on her 60th<\/sup> birthday in which she disclosed that she\u2019d had a life-threatening medical emergency in 1998.\u00a0 The crisis had been kept a secret not only from the public, but from her staff<\/a>, who were told she had a sprained ankle.\u00a0 Clinton\u2019s foot had swollen and she was in great pain.\u00a0 A White House doctor told her to rush to Bethesda Naval Hospital, where the diagnosis of a blood clot was made.\u00a0 “That was scary,\u201d Hillary said, \u201cbecause you have to treat it immediately — you don’t want to take the risk that it will break lose and travel to your brain, or your heart or your lungs. \u00a0That was the most significant health scare I’ve ever had.”\u00a0 Clinton assured the reporter that she was no longer on blood thinners. This was probably the last time Hillary spoke candidly about her health.<\/p>\n What Clinton had was a deep vein thrombosis, or venous thromboembolism (VTE).\u00a0 The blood clot is usually in the leg, and in Hillary\u2019s case, it was behind the right knee.<\/p>\n Now Dr. Bardack revealed that Hillary had had two others.\u00a0 The first, in 2009, was another VTE, but the second was still more serious.\u00a0 It was a right transverse cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST).\u00a0 This is a clot in one of the two channels between layers of the dura, the membrane enclosing the brain, which receive blood and cerebrospinal fluid.\u00a0 A clot here means that blood flow out of the brain is impeded, and there is the potential for a hemorrhage if there\u2019s leakage into the cerebral tissues.\u00a0 The Johns Hopkins Health Library<\/a> refers to it as a rare form of stroke affecting only five in one million individuals.\u00a0 It\u2019s treated with anti-seizure medicines as well as anticoagulants, and the complications range from impaired speech, difficulty moving parts of the body, and vision problems to death.<\/p>\n There were two problems in the 2015 letter relating to the clot:<\/p>\n 1)\u00a0 Clinton, her physician wrote, \u201cbegan anticoagulation therapy to dissolve the clot.\u201d\u00a0 But this is not something anticoagulants do.\u00a0 Two of these drugs are mentioned by Bardack:\u00a0 Lovenox, which was discontinued beuing administered to her in 1998, and Coumadin (warfarin).<\/p>\n Bristol-Myers-Squibb<\/a>, its manufacturer, says explicitly that the medication doesn\u2019t dissolve clots:<\/p>\n COUMADIN has no direct effect on an established thrombus, nor does it reverse ischemic tissue damage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Every doctor prescribing Coumadin knows this.\u00a0 Because of patient expectations, all reputable medical sites, like the NIH\u2019s PubMed<\/a>, repeat the warning.<\/p>\n There are thrombolytic (clot-dissolving) drugs, injected by catheter or infused through an i.v., but none are mentioned by Bardack.\u00a0 In any case, the embolisms for which thrombolytic agents are indicated<\/a> don\u2019t correspond to Clinton\u2019s, and these drugs are never referred to as anticoagulants.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 A second problem comes with the duration of the symptoms.\u00a0 Bardack says that these lasted for less than two months.\u00a0 But according to Bill Clinton<\/a>, his wife\u2019s injury \u201crequired six months of very serious work to get over.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course it could be that the four addition months of symptoms were the result not of the concussion, but the CVST.\u00a0 However, it would not be easy to differentiate these symptoms.\u00a0 One is instinctively disinclined to take the former President\u2019s word on anything, but there\u2019d be no reason for him to exaggerate the length of time it took his wife to recover.<\/p>\n In any case, what the public was told was an elbow fracture (Hillary sported a State Department sling) and a concussion (she was jokingly presented with a football helmet by her minions) coincided with problems much more ominous.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 A third issue in the 2015 letter is Bardack\u2019s final evaluation of her patient.\u00a0 Twice she calls Clinton \u201ca healthy female\u201d and concludes that \u201cshe is in excellent physical condition and fit to serve as President of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n While Bardack could hardly have been expected to write otherwise, the truth is that anyone who is on lifelong Coumadin is not in excellent physical condition.\u00a0 As is well known, warfarin was developed as a rat poison, and increases significantly the risk of Dr. Milton Wolf, a board-certified radiologist, writes, \u201cCoumadin carries a substantial risk for patients, particularly those with fall risk. Spontaneous hemorrhage common, intracranial and elsewhere. I see it commonly, including life-threatening brain bleeds. Normal, healthy patients are NEVER, NEVER prescribed Coumadin.\u201d\u00a0 There are safer anticoagulants.\u00a0 \u201cCoumadin is typically given to those who can\u2019t afford the newer drugs or reserved for cases that are refractory to the safer drugs.\u201d\u00a0 Wolf speculates that Clinton probably has a hypercoagulable blood disorder.\u00a0 Coumadin would otherwise be given only to patients with chronic atrial fibrillation (like the vets) or with prosthetic heart valves, both of which can cause hypercoagulation.<\/p>\n The interactions with warfarin are also sobering.\u00a0 In addition to avoiding both NSAIDs and acetaminophen, users are advised not to use, or to use with caution, antibiotics, anti-fungal medications, anti-depressants, and seizure medication — carbamazepine (Carbatrol, Equetro, Tegretol), phenobarbital (Solfoton), and phenytoin (Dilantin).<\/p>\n Whether or not Hillary has been put at risk by seizure medications, the whole world now knows about her propensity to fall.\u00a0 The airplane and podium stumbles and her being helped up a short flight of steps had gone viral long before the 9\/11 collapse.\u00a0 And we know nothing about the falls that have occurred off-camera, except for the one that gave her a concussion.\u00a0 Family friends have told Ed Klein<\/a> these falls are frequent.\u00a0 And head trauma is the number one concern for patients on Coumadin.<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0 Still another disclosure in Bardack\u2019s July 2015 letter raised eyebrows.\u00a0 In addition to taking Coumadin for the rest of her life, Hillary will also be on Armour thyroid until she dies.\u00a0 Unlike CVST, hypothyroidism, an underactive thyroid gland, is common.\u00a0 In fact, the most frequently prescribed drug in the U.S. (though not the most lucrative) is Synthroid<\/a>, synthetic levothyroidoxine, the major hormone the gland produces.<\/p>\n Armour thyroid is an extract of desiccated pig\u2019s thyroid.\u00a0 The therapy dates to the 19th<\/sup> century, and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists recommends that it not be used.\u00a0 But a case can be made for natural thyroid therapy, and one recent study<\/a> found that more patients prefer it, though there was no difference in the control of symptoms.\u00a0 These include memory problems and difficulty thinking clearly.\u00a0 A physician<\/a> who is one of the most vocal advocates of natural thyroid switched to a different brand of natural thyroid after Armour changed the tablet formula in 2009.<\/p>\n II.\u00a0 The letter of 14 September 2016<\/a><\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 Bardack disclosed that Clinton was given a brain scan for an ear infection after<\/em> she had \u201cexperienced significant improvement in her symptoms.\u201d\u00a0 The physician of a patient \u201cin excellent health\u201d would not normally order a CT scan for an ear infection that was being successfully treated by antibiotics and a myringotomy tube.\u00a0 Bardack\u2019s caution, however commendable, suggests she was worried about some underlying problem.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 Bardack then discusses Hillary\u2019s pneumonia.\u00a0 When an upper respiratory infection persisted for a week after Clinton had been prescribed antibiotics and allergy medicine, Bardack, on Sept. 9, ordered \u201ca non-contrast chest CT scan, including a CTA calcium score.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Dr. Wolf, a CTA (a CT angiogram) scan always requires a contrast.\u00a0 On the other hand, a CT calcium score study must always be non-contrast, otherwise \u201cthe coronary calcifications would be masked by the contrast in the arteries.\u201d\u00a0 The radiologist concluded that \u201cHillary\u2019s doctor just claimed Hillary got a perfect score on a test that does not exist.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s likely that Bardack misstated what she\u2019d ordered — though one would think she would be extraordinarily careful in a letter that would be read by millions.\u00a0 A coronary calcium scoring CT does not use contrast, while a CTA requires it<\/a>. A simple thoracic CT<\/a>, which is what Hillary must have received, may or may not be done with contrast.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s the finding from the scan:\u00a0 \u201ca small right middle-lobe pneumonia,\u201d further described as \u201ca mild non-contagious bacterial pneumonia.\u201d<\/p>\n Doctors immediately questioned this diagnosis.\u00a0 There is no such thing as a non-contagious pneumonia, tweeted Dr. Wolf<\/a>. How did Hillary pick it up?\u00a0 What about all the reports<\/a>\u00a0 the campaign circulated about staffers who\u2019d come down with pneumonia, including manager Robbie Mook?<\/p>\n While bacterial pneumonia is not as contagious as viral pneumonia, there is no test to determine whether or not a patient is contagious.\u00a0 A doctor defending Bardack<\/a> listed three types of bacterial pneumonia not likely to be contagious.\u00a0 The only one that Hillary could possibly have had was aspiration pneumonia.<\/p>\n The dubious adjective \u201cnon-contagious\u201d may have been dictated to Bardack by Clinton.\u00a0 The problem, obviously, was that after her collapse, the candidate went directly to her daughter\u2019s apartment, where she presumably exposed her grandchildren to pneumonia, then, 90 minutes later, bounced out of the building,exulting<\/a> that it was a beautiful day in New York, and embraced a little girl, exposing her, too, to the infection.<\/p>\nintercranial<\/s>\u00a0intracranial bleeding.\u00a0\u00a0 A recent ten-year study<\/a>of 32,000 veterans found that nearly one-third developed intercranial<\/s>\u00a0intracranial bleeds while on warfarin.\u00a0 The vets were over 75, but the high figure was still very disturbing, though probably not surprising to most physicians.<\/p>\n