Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel and CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta both weighed in on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellās (R-KY) latest freezing incident on Wednesday and suggested what the underlying health issue could be.
On Fox Newsā The Special Report with Bret Baier following the incident, Siegel noted that while he hadnāt examined McConnell, his best guess āwould be Parkinsonās disease because that, in its later stages, can give you a freeze.ā
Gupta also raised the possibility of Parkinsonās disease during an appearance on CNNās The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday.
āThereās a long list of possibilities here. I think what we saw was pretty concerning. I think most people could see that,ā Gupta said. āIt was similar to what we saw in July where there was this freezing. Itās the freezing of the speech, itās the freezing of the body, itās the tight sort of grasping of the side of the lectern.ā
He continued, āHis face even has this mask-like feature to it. So thereās a lot of things that are going on there.ā
Gupta argued that while McConnell could have suffered from a seizure or something similar, āIt could be something like when somebody comes off of their medications for things like Parkinsonās. When the medication start to wear off, they may start to have freezing episodes as well.ā
Obviously something very wrong happened to McConnell and I think itās way past the time he retires, but Iām not a fan of diagnosing someone remotely without knowing their medical history or the results of ongoing medical investigations. I didnāt like it when Bill Frist did it with Terry Schiavo and I donāt like it now.
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obviously itās stupid to suggest we can figure it out with any expectation of accuracy. That saidā¦ We can figure out enough to say āthis aināt a good sign.ā
Also, its funny how the WebMD Symptom-thingy for headaches starts off with āMeh just a headacheā and rapidly progresses to āyer gonna dieā pretty quicklyā¦ and weāre not gonna get anything more accurate withoutā¦ the, uh, full on routine.
I donāt think CNN should be having medical experts on to talk about it at all. Report what happened, report the fallout. Wait until his doctors say something, with his permission, because itās nobodyās business what his exact condition is even if it is detrimental to the Senate and its proceedings. Medical details are private. Period.
And CNN (and probably the other channels) has done this for decades. Most recently with Sanjay Gupta. Any time some major person appears to have a health issue, Gupta is there to speculate. I donāt think itās his fault, he seems to be competent enough, but itās not CNNās business to do it.
"well, we canāt really say much at all without a full workup, but, you knowā¦ that he really should go get looked atā¦ and its possibly " might be okay. of course the nature of soundbitesā¦ thatās gonna turn into āhe deadman.ā pretty quickly.