Of all the issues defining the U.S. Senate race between Republican Mehmet Oz and Democrat John Fetterman, Fetterman’s health should rank close to last. Even so, it has loomed large in an increasingly tight contest for a potentially pivotal U.S. Senate seat. Fetterman can diminish the influence of this distracting side-issue by releasing his medical records now and allowing reporters to question his physician.
In September, a Post-Gazette editorial called on both U.S. Senate nominees to release their medical records. Oz, 62, released his two days later, indicating he was in good health. Fetterman, 53, who suffered a life-threatening stroke in May, has not released his.
As a matter of transparency, all candidates for a major political office should release their medical records, disclosing conditions that might affect their ability to serve. Medical records are not a perfect indicator of health, but they are more reliable than biased and self-serving assessments by the candidates themselves.
That said, medical records are not a reason to vote for a candidate. Other, far more important considerations, including character and positions on key issues, should determine which candidate a voter supports. Nor are medical records any guarantee of how healthy a person will be two years from now.
By not releasing his medical records, however, Fetterman is elevating their importance and generating suspicions that may be entirely unwarranted. Fetterman’s failure to release his medical records has allowed Oz to make Fetterman’s health a major campaign issue.
Fetterman also is showing a fundamental lack of faith in people’s ability to put health into perspectives and fairly decide his overall fitness for office.
Fetterman has deflected calls by Oz to release his medical records by arguing that Oz’s positions and policies are more important than his heath records. Well, of course they are. And the best way Fetterman can ensure that voters don’t get distracted from important policy questions is by releasing his medical records.
In truth few medical conditions would prevent a U.S. senator from doing his or her job. In a Sept. 28, article by Bethany Rodgers of the Erie Times-News, Dr. Jacob Appel, a professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai, noted that the late-Sen. Clair Engle, a California Democrat, unable to speak and suffering from a brain tumor, cast a tie-breaking vote that passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Engle voted “aye” by pointing to his eye. Regardless of their health, Oz and Fetterman would be lucky to do something that significant in their political career.
The results of this election could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate. Fetterman can stop inflating the importance of his medical records by releasing them now.
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