NYT to Raise New Questions on McCain’s Health

One of the stories bubbling just over the surface is the issue of John McCain’s health. While the story of his frequent bouts with cancer have been well documented, and he did allow reporters to see his records in a very controlled setting, many have demanded a more thorough accounting of his various medical issue. The New York Times will be shedding some additional light on this issue.

Story:

The New York Times will break new ground on the health of the presidential candidates and their running mates in a major expose set to be published in Monday’s print edition.

Lawrence Altman — the veteran Times reporter, George Polk Award winner, and one of the few medical doctors working as a full-time journalist — has spent weeks working with the campaigns and medical professionals on the piece, sources say.

Much of the speculation centers on new questions about the status of John McCain’s cancer raised by the story. The Washington Post reported last week that a growing number of doctors believe that McCain’s melanoma is “more advanced than his physicians concluded and that the chance of recurrence is consequently higher.”

But another peculiar facet of the Times story involves the McCain campaign’s refusal, as of this weekend, to turn over Sarah Palin’s medical information.

As I noted above the jump, there has been some frustration from various reporters and doctors about how the release of the previous records was handled:

“We were given three hours to go over 1,200 pages of records. That is a lot to go through. It was very sort of cloak and dagger and I’m sure they had their reasons. Given that I had my medical training, I was able to hone in on what it thought was important more quickly. But the pages weren’t numbered, so I had no way of knowing what was missing… As a reporter I can only comment on what I saw but I can’t say by any means that this was complete… As far as the secretiveness of it, what they said to us is that you can’t take anything out of the room, but you could make notes. So it was a lot to go through in a short period of time.”

This story should be interesting, and will probably provide more headaches for McCain. All in all, not the way they probably wanted to start the week.