For the second time in a year, a noted physician has come out publicly equating Donald Trump’s behavior to late stage or neurosyphilis.
If you remember last February, infectious disease physician, Dr. Steven Beutler wrote a piece in the New Republic speculating that neurosyphilis may be the cause of Trump’s “bizarre, volatile behavior”.
Listen: The Donald Trump neurosyphilis article: Should a physician comment on this from a distance?
Now on Saturday, a prominent physician and bacteriologist from Sweden tweeted something to the same effect. Dr Agnes Wold tweeted in response to a Trump tweet referencing himself as a “stable genius”- “Wow! Can we make a guess at late-stage syphilis?” (Translated).
Dr Wold later noted she was just joking.
Should an infectious disease physician be writing, tweeting or joking about this? Is that the responsible thing?
Just a couple of questions.
In 2016, Dr. Art Caplan from the NYU Langone Medical Center’s Division of Medical Ethics offered his thoughts concerning the ethics of writing a speculative article or commenting on TV and radio and diagnosing from a distance on Medscape.
Related:
- Syphilis cases top 5500 in Japan
- Totally preventable: Congenital syphilis on the rise in the US
- Sexually Transmitted Infections: Those common and those not so common, Part 1
- CDC issues ocular syphilis clinical advisory
- Measles: More cases reported at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Gothenburg
- A syphilis primer
No, they should not. Neither should any of the physicians and non-physicians who have spoken at great length and on several media outlets concerning the President’s mental and physical health without having examined or treated him. None of this is a joke, and I am shocked that these so-called “professionals” feel that broadcasting their political beliefs are more important than maintaining their oath and their reputation.
I think if a president of the USA shows numerous symptoms of serious mental and neurological illnesses, in the massive public record of his life, risks to the nation and the whole world are too great not to require his getting thoroughly tested with a transparent protocol he cannot “fix”, as there is evidence he has done several times. Patient privacy should normally take priority, but not with so many reasons as can be seen in the case of Trump. The USA is based on the principle of equality under the law, so all the wealth and power in the world does not exempt Donald Trump from the law protecting the public just the same as from a poor criminally insane person.