A Parkinson’s specialist from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center visited the White House eight times in eight months from last summer to spring, including at least once for a meeting with President Biden’s doctor, according to officials visitor logs;
The expert, Dr. Kevin Cannard, is a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders and recently published a paper on Parkinson’s disease. The logs, released by the White House, document visits from July 2023 to March of this year. More recent visits, if any, will not be released until later under the White House’s voluntary disclosure policy.
It was unclear whether Dr. Canard was at the White House to specifically consult on the president or was there for unrelated meetings. The page of Dr. Canard on LinkedIn describes him as “supporting the White House Medical Unit” for more than 12 years. His biography on Doximity, a website for health professionals, lists him as “neurology consultant to the White House Medical Unit and physician to the president” from 2012 to 2022, which will include the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Donald J. Trump.
Records from the Obama administration, when Mr. Biden was vice president, show that Dr. Canard made at least 10 visits in 2012 and one family tour. four in 2013; one in 2014; four in 2015; and eight in 2016. Mr. Trump rescinded Mr. Obama’s policy on voluntary disclosure of White House visitors, so records are not available for his four years in office.
Dr. Canard did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The White House did not specifically comment on the purpose of Dr. Canard or if they were related to the president. “A wide variety of specialists from the Walter Reed system are visiting the White House complex to treat the thousands of military personnel working on the ground,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said in a statement.
Without discussing Dr. Canard specifically, Mr. Bates said the president “sees a neurologist once a year” as part of his overall annual physical and “that exam found no signs of Parkinson’s and he is not being treated for it . .” He declined to provide dates of any meetings between Mr. Biden and any of his specialists, but said there have been “no neurologist visits other than one for his physical per year, three total” during his three and a half years in office.
At her regular briefing later in the day, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, declined to answer questions about Dr. Cannard, saying he would not discuss experts coming to the White House out of concern for their “privacy.” and “security,” even though Dr. Canard lists his affiliation with the White House on a public website.
Dr. Canard met on January 17 with Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the White House physician, as well as Dr. John Atwood, a cardiologist at Walter Reed, and another person early in the evening at the White House clinic, the stump appeared. That meeting came a month before Mr. Biden underwent his most recent annual physical at Walter Reed on Feb. 28.
In a six-page letter released after this review, Dr. O’Connor said the president’s medical team conducted “an extremely detailed neurological examination” that had yielded “no findings consistent with” Parkinson’s disease, stroke or other central neurological disorders. Dr. O’Connor did not say whether the exam included common tests to assess cognitive decline or identify signs of dementia that are often recommended in older people.
The White House has said in recent days that there is no reason to hold a further review since February. Questions about Mr. Biden’s health, specifically his Parkinson’s disease, have multiplied since his disastrous showing against Mr. Trump on June 27. In interviews on ABC News on Friday and MSNBC on Monday, Mr. Biden said he had the equivalent of a neurological exam every day because of the pressure of the presidency.
Visitor logs, which have also been reported by other news organizations, including The New York Post and The Guardian, showed that the first recorded visit by Dr. Canard’s visit to the White House during the Biden administration was on Nov. 15, 2022. Records show he was visiting Joshua Simmons, whose title is not listed.
Dr. Canard’s eight most recent visits began on July 28, 2023, when he reportedly met with Megan Nasworthy, a White House liaison to Walter Reed. He was listed as the go-to person for seven of these meetings, which were consistently early, between 7 and 9 a.m. of Friday, with the exception of the last meeting, which took place on Thursday, March 28, the day before Good Friday. The diaries note a 10th visit that appeared to be for a family tour of the White House.
Mr. Bates, the White House spokesman, said that while the president always travels with regular doctors, he “hasn’t seen any specialists in Delaware,” where he has private residences.
Around the time of the first meetings, Dr. Canard published a research paper in the journal Parkinsonism & Related Disorders on the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.
A number of neurologists who have not personally examined Mr. Biden said they noticed symptoms in his public appearances consistent with Parkinson’s disease or a related illness, including slurred speech, a stooped forward posture, a shuffling gait, a masked face and an irregular pattern speech. But they stressed that a definite diagnosis could not be given without first-hand examination.
White House officials said Mr. Biden had shown no signs of Parkinson’s disease and that Dr. O’Connor found no reason to reevaluate Mr. Biden for the disease since his physical in February. Mr. Bates also said the president has never taken levodopa or other drugs for the condition.
In his interview with ABC News on Friday, Mr. Biden refused to agree to an independent neurological and cognitive examination. “I take a cognitive test every day,” he said, implying that the extraordinary challenges of the presidency effectively tested him on a daily basis.
Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday morning, Mr. Biden again insisted that his confusion and interrupted debate performance was an aberration due in part to an infection or other minor ailment and was not a sign of a larger medical issue. problem.
“If there was anything wrong with that night, it’s not that it comes and that’s one night and it goes,” he said. “That’s why I’m out. I test myself, I test everywhere I go. To go out and do the case. The night of that conversation, I went out. I was out until 2am that night. That very night. It drives me crazy, people talking about it.”
