FOXNEWS.COM HOME > HEALTH

Biden Healthy, But at Increased Risk for Aneurysm, Doctor Says

Monday, August 25, 2008

By Jessica Ryen Doyle

As he approaches the end of his sixth term as a U.S. senator from Delaware, Joe Biden certainly lends experience to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

But is the 65-year-old Democratic vice presidential nominee-to-be physically fit to be "a heartbeat away"?

One medical expert says yes, despite his increased risk for suffering an aneurysm.

Biden underwent surgery in 1988 to repair two berry aneurysms on opposite sides of his brain. (A berry aneurysm gets its name because the bulge it creates is so small it looks like a tiny blueberry.)

As long as Biden is checked regularly by his health care providers, and has regular brain CT scans (at least every 1-2 years), he should have a normal life expectancy, Dr. Michael Marin, chief of surgery at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City, told FOXNews.com.

“He is probably on medication, but not for the aneurysms. Maybe for blood pressure or that kind of thing,” Marin said. “These aneurysms were diagnosed before he had any events, so he is fine.”

An aneurysm is an enlargement of a normal artery. If an artery has a bulge on its surface – due to genetics or a medical condition such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure – and the artery wall becomes stretched, it can rupture.

However, the causes of berry aneurysms, which are similar to other types of aneurysms, aren’t well known, Marin said.

U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones died Wednesday from a brain aneurysm.

At the time, Marin, who did not treat Tubbs Jones, said she – like most sufferers of brain aneurysms – probably had no warning signs.

But Biden did have warning signs: When the first aneurysm ruptured, he suffered neck pain and nausea. Apparently, the second aneurysm tore without warning signs, but it was repaired a few weeks after the first, and he was back to work at the Senate soon thereafter.

"About 6 million people in the United States are living with a brain aneurysm," said Dr. Marc Siegel, an internist and FOX News medical contributor.

The yearly rate of rupture is about 1 in 10,000 people, Siegel said, and almost half will die as a result of the rupture.

Click here to read more from Siegel on aneurysms.

"There are two ways to fix an aneurysm when it is detected early," Marin said.

One way is to surgically open the brain and secure the aneurysm at its base with a metal clip.

The second and more desirable way is to pack the aneurysm with small, flexible wire coils that are inserted into the aneurysm using a catheter, which is inserted through the groin, Marin said.

Often, even if a person catches the aneurysm early and the doctors have a chance to treat it, the person can still be left with stroke-like side effects. This was not the case with Biden.

Biden Discusses Aneurysms - From: CBS News

From: CBS NEWS

August 30, 2008, 9:06 PM
Biden Discusses Aneurysms
Posted by Maria Gavrilovic

From CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic:

(DUBLIN, Ohio) Joe Biden, who attended the memorial service for Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones today, talked about his own bout with aneurysms that nearly killed him 20 years ago. "When mine burst fortunately as described to me by the neurosurgeon it ricocheted off my skull instead of into my brain,” Biden explained, “If it had been the other way around I'd be a….”

Biden seemed to be particularly affected by Tubbs Jones’ death, because it was a stark reminder of what could have happened to him. “I know it sounds corny, it almost sounds maudlin, but you know here she was one day walking around just like I was the next day,” he said adding, “I woke up four hours later on the floor with a hemorrhage. In her case the same thing happened only she never made it back."

Explaining the severity of aneurysms, Biden said that neurosurgeons can “either fix or they don’t.” “If they fix it it's fixed. If they don't they don't there's not much in between it's not like cancer or heart disease or something, but it was kinda poignant."

Obama attended the memorial service in Cleveland with Biden and the Clintons. “What struck me most about Stephanie was how, even after a decade in Congress, she was so utterly unaffected by the ways of Washington. She was still a home girl,” Obama said at the service.

Both Obama and Biden spent time with Tubbs Jones nearly a month ago.

OCTOBER SURPRISE? Will Sen. Biden, citing health concerns (aneurysms), step down for Sen. Clinton? Snopes.com is on it.

Update: Status at Snopes has been changed to: False
Claim: Joe Biden is planning to step down from the vice-presidential slot on the Democratic ticket in favor of Hillary Clinton.

Status: Undetermined.

Example: [Collected via e-mail, September 2008]

On or about October 5th, Biden will excuse himself from the ticket, citing health problems, and he will be replaced by Hillary. This is timed to occur after the VP debate on 10/2.

There have been talks all weekend about how to proceed with this info. Generally, the feeling is that we should all go ahead and get it out there to as many blog sites and personal email lists as is possible. I have
already seen a few short blurbs about this - the 'health problem' cited in those articles was aneurysm. Probably many of you have heard the same rumblings.

However, at this point, with this inside info from the DNC, it looks like this Obama strategy will be a go. Therefore, it seems that the best strategy is to get out in front of this Obama maneuver, spell it out in detail, and thereby expose it for the grand manipulation that it is.

So, let's start mixing this one up and cut the Obamites off at the pass - send this info out to as many people as you can - post about it on websites and blogs - etc.

Origins: Rumors about changes in vice-presidential candidates have already popped up at times in recent presidential elections. In 2004 an Internet-circulated rumor claimed that President George W. Bush was planning to dump Dick Cheney and choose a different running mate; and immediately after Senator John McCain announced that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was his choice for the vice-presidential slot on the 2008 Republican ticket, even the mainstream press was reporting some vague rumblings that she might quickly be dropped in favor of a different candidate.

Now yet another rumor of this category has appeared, claiming that Senator Joe Biden will cite health concerns as a reason for stepping down as the vice-presidential candidate on the 2008 Democratic ticket, to be replaced by Senator Hillary Clinton. The dates cited for the announcement of Biden's resignation are variously reported to be "early October," "after the VP debate," "October 2nd," or "October 5th."

It's difficult to definitively prove a negative, but rumors of Biden's replacement as a VP candidate seem to be nothing more than e-mail chatter at this point, and reports of Biden's health issues in the press appear to be mostly biographical mentions that he was hospitalized in 1988 after suffering from two brain aneurysms. No presidential candidate has switched running mates in the middle of a campaign since George McGovern replaced Thomas Eagleton with Sargent Shriver just 18 days after the 1972 Democratic convention (Eagleton stepped down when reports surfaced that he had previously been hospitalized for nervous exhaustion and received electroshock therapy), with disastrous results: McGovern lost in an electoral landslide. A strategy of calculatedly springing a change of running mates on the public just before an election carries the danger of proving a double-edged sword: Whatever boost Barack Obama's campaign might conceivably gain by swapping Joe Biden for Hillary Clinton just a month before the general election might also be more than offset by criticism that such a last-minute switch demonstrated poor decision-making ability and was indicative of a weak and vacillating presidential candidate.

Last updated: 18 September 2008

Sen. Biden even gives a mention that Hillary may have been a better pick for VP than him.


Rush Limbaugh gives mention to this possibility on Fox News Channel's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren: