The State Department's latest dump of Hillary Clinton's emails may dominate the news cycle in the coming days, but her campaign also released another crucial document on Friday — a clean bill of health for the Democratic front-runner.
The confirmation comes from Lisa Bardack, a New York-based doctor who has been Clinton's physician since 2001. In a letter, she declares Clinton "a healthy-appearing female," saying that Clinton exercises regularly, eats plenty of vegetables and fruits, doesn't smoke, and "drinks alcohol only occasionally."
"She is in excellent condition and fit to serve as President of the United States," Bardack writes.
Not that Clinton is in perfect health. She is on Coumadin, an anti-coagulation medication she takes for deep-vein thrombosis (that is, a blood clot in a deep vein). She suffered from the condition in 1998 and 2009, Bardack writes, and also suffered a clot after a 2012 concussion. That concussion came as Clinton, dehydrated from a stomach virus, fainted in her home. Though the effects of the concussion are gone and the thrombosis was dissolved, she has taken the medication since then as a precaution.
This makes Clinton the first of the presidential candidates to release her medical evaluation. Though they are not required to do so, major candidates often submit them as a matter of course — as they do their tax returns — as part of the unofficial pre-election vetting procedure. Read Bardack's evaluation letter below.
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