| Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash
Part XXX of the “United States 2024 Election
Donald J. Trump’s father, Fred, died in 1999 from Alzheimer’s disease at age 93. According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurosurgeon and CNN’s chief medical correspondent, “Mr. Trump does at times display some of these same signs as President Biden, including nonsensical rants as well as confusing names and current events.” Did former President Trump inherit his father’s Alzheimer’s genes?
According to the National Institute on Aging (NIA), Alzheimer’s disease is not inherited in most cases, but rare types can be caused by faulty genes passed down from an affected parent. These rare genetic variants, called mutations, are known as early-onset familial Alzheimer’s disease (FAD). If a child inherits one of these variants, they have a 50/50 chance of developing the disease before age 65, sometimes much earlier.
Medical data also say that people (who have a parent or sibling diagnosed with the disease) have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s than those without that association. Please read this study on Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics.
As this columnist wrote before, some voters even want Mr. Trump to undergo — while he is being tested for Alzheimer’s disease — the so-called M’Naghten Test, which requires a defendant to show he did not have the substantial capacity to understand right from wrong. The “Irresistible Impulse Test” can determine if a person is unable to control an impulse even though the defendant knows it is wrong.
To the limited knowledge of this columnist, no Biden has, or had, suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Ergo, perhaps voters and pundits can conclude that former President Trump needs first to have medical tests (ahead of Mr. Biden) to see if he has Alzheimer’s disease.
However, in the interest of objectivity and fairness, it may be politically correct to test all presidential candidates (and vice presidents). Yes, especially an independent candidate for president who claimed that “a worm has eaten part of his brain.” The adage goes, “It is better to be safe than sorry.” Right?
