The White House rejected speculation President Joe Biden is being treated for Parkinson’s disease after a specialist was found to be repeatedly on the executive campus’s visitors log.
“Has the president been treated for Parkinson’s? No. Is he being treated for Parkinson’s? No. Is he taking medication for Parkinson’s? No,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday.
During a tense press briefing, Jean-Pierre declined to confirm the purpose of Dr. Kevin Cannard‘s visits to the White House, citing security and privacy concerns for him and other military personnel who are patients of the White House Medical Unit. Cannard is a Walter Reed National Military Medical Center-based neurologist who specializes in Parkinson’s disease and has supported the White House Medical Unit for the past two decades, visiting the executive compound at least eight times in eight months, ending in March.
After Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last week that he would not take a cognitive test, Jean-Pierre reiterated that the president has seen a neurologist three times since becoming president, once a year during his annual physical checkup.
Facing credibility questions, Jean-Pierre similarly defended herself after she told reporters last week Biden had not seen the White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, after the debate before the president told donors later that day that he had. The following day, the press secretary then differentiated between a checkup and a check-in, the latter of which she added on Monday that Biden has “a couple times a week.”
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“He did not have a medical exam. He did not have a physical,” she said.
But Jean-Pierre did relay that Biden had tested negative for COVID-19 on Monday morning after second gentleman Doug Emhoff contracted the respiratory disease last weekend.
