White House doctor Kevin O’Connor has said that Joe Biden is “fit for duty” and “no new concerns” have been identified after the president’s annual medical examination.
Biden’s health has been under increasing scrutiny ahead of November’s presidential election.
“He continues to be fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations,” the doctor said in a summary.
The only issue this year was Biden’s use of a machine to keep his airways clear at night and reduce sleep disruption, along with an emergency dental procedure.
The report said that the US president suffers from a few minor issues including a stiff walk due to wear and tear in his spine, the report said. There has been no significant change in them from last year, the report added.
The 81-year-old president took the medical examination at the military hospital in Maryland and joked with the reporters that the doctors thought he looked “too young” after the examination.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the president for not taking a cognitive test.
“The president passes a cognitive test every day,” Jean-Pierre said.
Under the scanner
Biden, 81 years old, has been fighting a widespread and negative impression about his age, and that it makes him unfit to serve a second term as president. Three quarters of voters, half of them Democrats, share this concern but according to an NBC poll taken last month.
The president’s health was again in the spotlight this month after a counsel investigating Biden for improperly storing classified documents suggested he was suffering from mental decline.
The report said he was “a sympathetic, well meaning, elderly man with a poor memory“.
Former US president Donald Trump and Republican frontrunner has routinely depicted Biden as pathetically old, decrepit and unfit for office, despite being nearly the same age.
