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Doctors blame Biden's debate performance on drugs [1]

['Jason Weisberger']

Date: 2024-07-01  

Republican operatives spent weeks before the debate trying to convince us that President Biden would be hopped up on speed. Two doctors now claim Biden's poor performance on cold meds.

These doctors claim President Biden's "Sleepy Joe" appearance was likely caused by cold medicine and its potential interactions with other medications. It seems that no one on Team Biden spent enough time clubbing in the 90s to have experienced the Purple Drank, and they gave the old man a giant ol' slug of the sizzurp! Sadly, Joe didn't show us his gangster lean.

Biden's symptoms appeared consistent with someone suffering from temporary drug-induced cognitive impairment. We now know he had a bad coldopens in a new tab or window during the debate. Most people believe common over-the-counter cold medications such as DayQuil, Tylenol, or Advil to be harmless. While generally well tolerated, these medications have well-documented side effects and can cause reduced alertness, diminished attention, poor memory, and reduced reaction time, especially in older individuals. These impairments are transitory but can appear consequential and alarming. Every experienced clinician has seen this effect thousands of times. If anti-cold medications were combined with other drugs, the risks could increase even more.

Upon hearing our perspective, Yale professor of psychiatry Marshal Mandelkern, MD, PhD, concurred: "As a clinician, when someone presents with 'altered mental status' I would always think of the possibility of drug ingestion as a cause. This is not only common, it is usually the most benign explanation for a change in mental state."

Pundits were quick to pile on Biden's poor performance with amateur diagnoses of permanently diminished mental capacity. Yet, calls for Biden to step down would be premature if the performance resulted from an adverse drug effect. The remedy is to ensure the president avoids these drugs and uses the experience as a teachable moment for seniors nationwide. Age may be an issue, but perhaps it is solely about susceptibility to drug effects.

As great as the coffee at Waffle House — where Biden stopped post-debateopens in a new tab or window — is, we believe the more likely reason for his continued improvement was that the cold medications he may have taken started wearing off. Trump misleads the American public in many areas, but one area where he may have inadvertently been correct was the role drugs played in Biden's debate performance.

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2024/07/01/doctors-blame-bidens-debate-performance-on-drugs.html

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