Guarding Hillary’s Health

Among all the recent WikiLeaks email dumps, perhaps the most important one of all has been overlooked by the mainstream media.

In it, Neera Tanden, Hillary Clinton’s longtime political guru, warned campaign manager John Podesta not to raise the question of primary opponent Bernie Sanders’ health because it would draw unwanted attention to the hidden truth about Hillary’s health.

“Hard to think of anything more counter-productive than demanding Bernie’s medical records,” Mr. Tanden emailed Mr. Podesta, according to an email obtained by WikiLeaks from Mr. Podesta’s personal inbox.

Until the publication of my new book, “Guilty As Sin,” the truth about Hillary’s health has been her campaign’s closest guarded secret.

Her physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack, has said that Hillary is fit as a fiddle, but according to my sources in the White House, that is not what President Obama and his senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, believe.

Mr. Obama and Ms. Jarrett have been so worried about Hillary’s health that they recently offered to arrange a secret medical checkup for her at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Hillary declined their offer because she feared a leak to the media would prove fatal to her presidential campaign. Instead, she has been secretly visiting the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where she arrives through a private entrance out of public sight and where she can rely on her doctors not to speak to the media.

Sources close to Hillary tell me that her doctors have discovered she suffers from arrhythmia (an abnormal heart beat) and a leaking heart valve. They have recommended that she consider having valve replacement surgery, but Hillary has refused because she does not want to risk the negative political fallout from stories about such a serious operation.

In addition to the arrhythmia and leaking heart valve, Hillary suffers from chronic low blood pressure, insufficient blood flow, a tendency to form life-threatening blood clots, and troubling side effects from her medications.

Her doctors have prescribed Coumadin, a blood thinner, and a beta blocker to treat her condition. However, these medications make her drowsy and tired, lower her blood pressure, and have led to frequent bouts of light-headedness and fainting spells.

Hillary has suffered at least five fainting spells that the public is aware of, including the most recent one at the 15th anniversary memorial service of 9/11.

In addition, there have been many other incidents of fainting that have been hidden from the public.

For example, after her 11-hour testimony before the Trey Gowdy Benghazi committee, Hillary swooned as she walked to her waiting Secret Service SUV and had to be carried into the back seat by her aides.

Among Hillary’s friends, it is common knowledge that she suffers from tension headaches, sits with her feet elevated, nods off to sleep while studying her speeches, gets dizzy and has frequently stumbled and fallen at her home in Chappaqua. She asks her closest aide, Huma Abedin, to rub her shoulders and bring her cold compresses for her neck and forehead.

“Huma always kneels down, whispers to her, rubs her shoulders, and comforts her,” said one of Hillary’s closest friends. “Huma seems genuinely alarmed at her condition, and looks agonized as well.

“Hillary also has a masseuse on call to work on her legs, which give her almost constant pain,” this friend continued. “It reminds me of what I read about Jack Kennedy’s constant back problems and how they were always hidden from the public.

“Hillary’s campaign people are well aware of her problem and are doing everything possible to make her schedule as easy as possible, but it’s hard to run for president and not work hard and spend a lot of time on your feet and constantly get photographed.

“Hillary believes that for the most part the press has been very considerate, withholding the worst pictures of her, particularly the ones of her looking like she is in agony, or worse, simply confused. I’m convinced that if it was up to Bill, he would have shut down the campaign a long time ago. But Hillary would rather die than do that. I think it is fair to say that the biggest issue behind the scenes with the campaign is Hillary’s health.”

The presidency is the most stressful job in the world, and the physical condition of those who aspire to the office is of vital importance.

So the question arises: Do Hillary’s health problems make her unfit to be president?

Only an independent panel of doctors, who examine her and are given access to all of her medical records, can answer that question.