The White House has shut down the burgeoning conspiracy that President Joe Biden has Parkinson’s disease, releasing the job specifics for Dr. Kevin Cannard, a neurology consultant that Fox News and Republican lawmakers irresponsibly and incorrectly pinned as a Parkinson’s expert.
In a news release Monday night, White House medical experts outlined that Cannard, who has reportedly visited the White House eight times since last summer, has been a member of the White House medical unit since 2012 and is the “longest serving Neurologist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and in the Military Healthcare System.”
His routine visits in the last year were a part of neurology clinics for active-duty members working in the White House, wrote Dr. Kevin O’Connor, physician to the president.
“Many military personnel experience neurological issues related to their service, and Dr. Cannard regularly visits the WHMU as part of this General Neurology practice,” the letter read.
Aside from that, Cannard’s other duties in the White House—which include examining Biden’s neurological condition during his annual physical—have been nothing out of the ordinary, per the letter.
“As I have written in each of the President’s medical reports, as part of the President’s annual physical, he sees a team of specialists that have included Optometry, Dentistry, Orthopedics (Foot and Ankle), Orthopedics (Spine), Physical Therapy, Neurology, Sleep Medicine, Cardiology, Radiology, and Dermatology,” O’Connor wrote in the release. “Dr. Cannard was the neurological specialist that examined President Biden for each of his annual physicals. His findings have been made public each time I have released the results of the President’s annual physical. President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical.”
O’Connor further cited his February examination of the president, which made mention of Cannard’s “extremely detailed neurological exam.”
“This exam did again support a finding of peripheral neuropathy in both feet,” O’Connor wrote at the time, referring to the results of the neurological exam that found no signs of neurological disorder. “No motor weakness was detected. He exhibits no tremor, either at rest or with activity. He demonstrates excellent fine motor dexterity.”
Cannard’s visits were reported breathlessly by multiple outlets over the weekend and into Monday, amid concerns that the White House press team isn’t being transparent about Biden’s health condition. But his visits have also been seized just as breathlessly by the far right to push factless conspiracies about Biden’s fitness for office.
