1. Home
  2. The Crazy 'Raid' Of Trump's Former Doctor

The Crazy 'Raid' Of Trump's Former Doctor

Agencies
May 2, 2018

May 2: President Donald Trump has never been a model of medical disclosure. Both of his most recent personal doctors have offered unbelievably rosy reviews of his health, omitting or spinning key facts, and both have had their credibility called into question.

We may be finding out why they did what they did.

NBC News just reported on what might be the craziest White House story you'll read this week. It involves Trump's colorful longtime personal doctor, Harold Bornstein, who claims that Trump's bodyguard, a Trump Organization lawyer and a third man conducted a "raid" of his office in February 2017, seizing 35 years of Trump's medical records. And on top of that, Bornstein now says Trump dictated his own initial doctor's letter, according to CNN.

The biggest question on the former is whether any laws were broken with the seizure, which Bornstein said left him feeling "raped, frightened and sad." Bornstein said he wasn't provided a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) release signed by the patient, Trump, which would be a violation. (An individual told NBC that there was a letter from Trump's then-White House doctor, Ronny L. Jackson, but that it wouldn't be sufficient.)

The second-biggest takeaway here, though, is how heavy-handed all this was. That may speak to why we still don't have a completely sober-minded review of Trump's health.

The event that appeared to set in motion the "raid" was Bornstein's disclosure in a New York Times interview that Trump takes a hair-loss drug, Propecia, along with medication for rosacea. Neither drug was disclosed in Trump's doctor's letters, and Trump failed to correct the record on two occasions. When Dr. Mehmet Oz interviewed him about his health and said the only medication Trump was taking was a statin, Trump mentioned neither of the other drugs. Later, Oz mentioned Trump's low PSA (prostate-specific antigen), which is a side effect of Propecia (or finasteride), which is also used as a prostate drug. But Trump didn't connect those dots. Instead, he said: "My PSA has been very good. I don't know what's going on."

It's extremely logical to assume that Trump was feeling self-conscious about the drugs he took for his hair and skin and decided not to disclose them. In Bornstein's telling, this disclosure seemed to set Trump World off. The day the New York Times interview ran, he said, Trump's longtime personal assistant Rhona Graff called him and told him, "So you wanted to be the White House doctor? Forget it; you're out." Two days later came the "raid."

Bornstein said he didn't realize what all the fuss was about when it came to Trump taking Propecia. "I couldn't believe anybody was making a big deal out of a drug to grow his hair that seemed to be so important," he told NBC News. "And it certainly was not a breach of medical trust to tell somebody they take Propecia to grow their hair. What's the matter with that?"

That's a little Pollyannaish. Everyone has a right to medical privacy, even the president. And regardless of Trump's lack of disclosure, perhaps an angry reaction was to be expected.

But that doesn't necessarily justify the "raid" that ensued. Nor do we know why Trump's aides seized the records rather than filing a complaint against Bornstein. It's not too conspiratorial to say Bornstein was disclosing things that Trump didn't want disclosed, and they sought to stop it - using muscle.

This isn't the first time Bornstein has alleged being pressured by those around Trump. He justified his initial, extremely over-the-top review of Trump's health by saying he was given five minutes to draft it while a limo waited outside his office. He later moderated the things he had said, including that Trump would be the healthiest president ever. Now he is telling CNN that Trump dictated the letter. And the fact that Trump's use of the hair-loss and rosacea drugs was obscured in the first place suggests Bornstein wasn't allowed to be particularly forthcoming.

We've long had reason to believe Trump didn't treat his medical records and status with much thought or care - and perhaps that the doctors treating him had been infected with a kind of "Trumpitis," picking up on the president's own penchant for hyperbole.

This suggests, though, that Trump has taken an acute and controlling interest in what his doctors say (and don't say) about him - so much so that he may be willing to launch a little shock-and-awe operation that might have been illegal.

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 2,2020

Paris, Mar 2: A global agency says the spreading new virus could make the world economy shrink this quarter, for the first time since the international financial crisis more than a decade ago.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says Monday in a special report on the impact of the virus that the world economy is still expected to grow overall this year and rebound next year.

But it lowered its forecasts for global growth in 2020 by half a percentage point, to 2.4 per cent, and said the figure could go as low as 1.5 per cent if the virus lasts long and spreads widely.

The last time world GDP shrank on a quarter-on-quarter basis was at the end of 2008, during the depths of the financial crisis. On a full-year basis, it last shrank in 2009.

The OECD said China's reduced production is hitting Asia particularly hard but also companies around the world that depend on its goods.

It urged governments to act fast to prevent contagion and restore consumer confidence.

The Paris-based OECD, which advises developed economies on policy, said the impact of this virus is much higher than past outbreaks because "the global economy has become substantially more interconnected, and China plays a far greater role in global output, trade, tourism and commodity markets."

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
May 27,2020

Geneva, May 27: The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide has increased by nearly 100,000 over the past 24 hours to surpass 5.4 million, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

According to the WHO, the global case tally currently stands at 5,404,512 -- a rise by 99,780 over the past day.

The death count worldwide amounts to 343,514 -- an increase by 1,486.

Most cases of infection are recorded in the Americas -- 2,454,452, with 143,739 deaths.

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Agencies
February 29,2020

Islamabad, Feb 29: A coalition comprising digital media giants Facebook, Google and Twitter (among others) have spoken out against the new regulations approved by the Pakistani government for social media, threatening to suspend services in the country if the rules were not revised, it was reported.

In a letter to Prime Minster Imran Khan earlier this month, the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) called on his government to revise the new sets of rules and regulations for social media, The News International reported on Friday.

"The rules as currently written would make it extremely difficult for AIC Members to make their services available to Pakistani users and businesses," reads the letter, referring to the Citizens Protection Rules (Against Online Harm).

The new set of regulations makes it compulsory for social media companies to open offices in Islamabad, build data servers to store information and take down content upon identification by authorities.

Failure to comply with the authorities in Pakistan will result in heavy fines and possible termination of services.

It said that the regulations were causing "international companies to re-evaluate their view of the regulatory environment in Pakistan, and their willingness to operate in the country".

Referring to the rules as "vague and arbitrary in nature", the AIC said that it was forcing them to go against established norms of user privacy and freedom of expression.

"We are not against regulation of social media, and we acknowledge that Pakistan already has an extensive legislative framework governing online content. However, these Rules fail to address crucial issues such as internationally recognized rights to individual expression and privacy," The News International quoted the letter as saying.

According to the law, authorities will be able to take action against Pakistanis found guilty of targeting state institutions at home and abroad on social media.

The law will also help the law enforcement authorities obtain access to data of accounts found involved in suspicious activities.

It would be the said authority's prerogative to identify objectionable content to the social media platforms to be taken down.

In case of failure to comply within 15 days, it would have the power to suspend their services or impose a fine worth up to 500 million Pakistani rupees ($3 million).

Comments

Add new comment

About text formats
  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.