Claims that President Joe Biden has a degenerative brain disease are back in the spotlight after he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on Sunday.
The purported diagnosis was made by Dr. Tom Pitts, a prominent neurologist, who said it was a “fact” based on Biden’s testimony. notable errors in a disastrous performance in a debate in June.
Biden, 81, struggled to answer questions, was at a loss for words and appeared unfocused.
That came after years of allegations of health problems, including forgetfulness and falls, amid reports that his close team keeps his health issues out of the public eye.
But the president continued his path of self-destruction when he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump” during a press conference last week. He has now endorsed her for the Democratic nomination.
Claims that President Joe Biden has a degenerative brain disease are back in the spotlight after he dropped out of the 2024 race on Sunday
“His motor symptoms are degenerating,” Pitts said. “He has Parkinsonism. That’s a fact. He has brain degeneration. Show me the MRI. Show me he doesn’t have it. Put your money where your mouth is. He definitely has it.”
Parkinsonism is a general term for degenerative brain diseases that include Parkinson’s disease.
Biden stepped aside on Sunday after facing weeks of questions about his fitness to serve as president following his disastrous debate with Trump on June 27.
President He was often seen on split screen with his mouth open and a blank stare.
During his speaking time at the podium, the president stumbled, froze, lost his train of thought and mumbled as he answered the moderator’s questions.
Biden’s shocking decision revealed in a one-page letter where he pledged to complete his term and soon after issued a follow-up tweet endorsing the vice president Kamala Harris as his replacement.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden wrote in a letter posted to his X account on Sunday.
“And while it has been my intention to seek re-election,” he continued, “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to step down and focus exclusively on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has flatly denied that Biden is receiving treatment for Parkinson’s disease outside of his regular checkups.
Jean-Pierre confirmed that Biden had been examined three times by a neurologist, but declined to say why a specialist visited the White House eight times in eight months, citing privacy and security concerns.
Pitts, a Columbia University graduate and four-time board-certified New York-based specialist, was asked during an interview with NBC for his opinion on the president’s condition.
In his various online profiles, Pitts does not mention any experience with Parkinson’s.
On LinkedIn, he describes his experience with headaches, multiple sclerosis and other brain-related diseases, but not Parkinson’s.
She regularly speaks to the media about health issues that are making headlines, including that of singer Celine Dion. battle with stiff person syndrome and possible neurological effects impact of Covid-19.
He made the astonishing claim that Biden “definitely” has Parkinson’s and sees people like him “20 times a day” working at his clinic, even claiming that from watching the president he could have “diagnosed him from across the mall.”
“It’s ironic because he has precisely these classic features of neurodegeneration: word-finding difficulties, and it’s not just, ‘Oh, I couldn’t find the right word,’ but a degeneration of the word retrieval area.”
Pitts has never personally examined Biden, but said what she saw in the debate is very common among people with the condition.
“You notice that when it turns, it’s like it’s turning at the end of the block; it’s not a fast turn,” Pitts said. NBC News.
“That’s one of the hallmarks of Parkinson’s: rigidity and bradykinesia, slow movements. And he has that characteristic, especially with the low voice that they said was a cold; hypophonia, a small, monotonous voice like this over time is a characteristic of Parkinson’s. I could have diagnosed him from across the mall.”
He also made clear that Biden’s historic struggles to overcome his stutter as a young man have absolutely nothing to do with what Pitts believes he is facing now.
“It’s not a problem with the palate or a speech discrepancy,” he said. “There is also stiffness and a monotonous voice.”
Pitts, a self-described Democrat, says the disease is easy to diagnose even from a distance. “His motor symptoms are degenerating,” Pitts said bluntly. “He has Parkinson’s. That’s a fact.”
Now, as White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denies that Biden has been screened for Parkinson’s disease outside of his regular checkups, Dr. Tom Pitts is speaking out.
DailyMail.com reached out to the White House for comment. They responded with a screenshot of the neurology section of Biden’s February health summary following his annual checkup.
The White House has taken damage control measures following reports that Joe Biden’s personal physician met with a prominent neurologist and Parkinson’s specialist at the White House.
Speculation has been rife about Biden’s poor health, which has been in doubt since his disastrous first debate with Donald Trump, and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added fuel to the fire by saying the president has seen a neurologist three times.
Kevin O’Connor is a movement disorders specialist at Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland.
O’Connor launched a letter with the permission of both Biden and Cannard and confirmed that Cannard had been the neurologist who evaluated the president in each of his three physicals since taking office.
But most of Cannard’s visits to the White House were in his role as a specialist attached to the White House Medical Unit, where he treated patients with a wide range of neurological problems for a dozen years, O’Connor said.