From NY Times, updated 6:04 pm:
Cheney Suffers 'Very Slight Heart Attack'
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 — Dick Cheney, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, suffered a "very slight heart attack" early today, a doctor said this afternoon.
The announcement, made about 5 p.m., followed an unusual day in which Mr. Cheney checked himself into a hospital after complaining of chest pains and underwent treatment for what doctors initially called a slight narrowing of a side heart artery.
Dr. Alan Wasserman, a professor of medicine and cardiology at George Washington University, said earlier today that there was no sign of a heart attack, nor any sign that Mr. Cheney had suffered any damage to his heart muscle.
The later announcement that Mr. Cheney had indeed suffered a heart attack — his fourth — came at a news conference summoned to clarify the earlier information.
At the later news conference, Dr. Wasserman said further tests during the day confirmed that the patient had suffered a heart attack, albeit a minor one. Part of the confusion, Dr. Wasserman suggested, arose from a newly-revised definition of just what constitutes a "heart attack."
Only a year ago, the doctor said, Mr. Cheney's ailment would not have been classified as a heart attack under American Medical Association terminology. But since then, the physician said, the level of enzymes found in Mr. Cheney's blood, an indicator of heart trouble, call for his condition to be termed an attack.
Doctors said that, despite the attack, Mr. Cheney, 59, is in excellent condition, will not remain hospitalized long and should make a complete recovery. He had a heart-bypass operation in 1988, and doctors said today he probably would not need another.
Earlier, Dr. Wasserman said a stent, or stainless steel expansion device, was threaded into a heart artery after tests showed some narrowing. The doctor said the procedure was done without the patient's being put under anesthesia. Late this afternoon, Dr. Wasserman said the patient had also undergone an angioplasty, a procedure in which a balloon-like device is used to widen an artery.
The Republican presidential candidate, Gov. George W. Bush, told reporters shortly after noon in Austin, Tex., that he had spoken to his running mate, and that he sounded strong and cheerful. "He's going to make a great vice president," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Cheney, who suffered three earlier heart attacks, went to George Washington before dawn after complaining of chest pains.
Mr. Cheney, a former Defense Secretary and Congressman from Wyoming, suffered his first heart attack at age 37 in 1978, when he was running for Congress. He received drug treatment for several years and gave up smoking. His second heart attack came in 1984 and the last in 1988.
Last summer, Mr. Cheney's personal physician, Dr. Gary Malakoff, described his patient as "up to the task of the most sensitive public office" and said he had shown no side effects of medication.
Reporters following him during the campaign found him energetic despite suffering a cold not long before the election. Mr. Cheney has acknowledged taking medicine to combat high cholesterol, a not uncommon condition in a man his age, and has said he exercises regularly and vigorously.
If a vice presidential candidate must be replaced, the presidential candidate chooses a successor, to be ratified by the party before the meeting of the Electoral College. If the replacement must be made after the meeting of the Electoral College, when the winning candidates are officially president-elect and vice president-elect, the incoming president would nominate a new vice president, who would be subject to confirmation by both the House and Senate.
Despite the late-afternoon clarification about Mr. Cheney's illness, there was no indication that those provisions would come to apply to him.
Dr. Wasserman said Mr. Cheney had done exactly the right thing by getting himself to a hospital after experiencing pain. He said further that Mr. Cheney's healthy diet and sensible exercise routine had kept his heart strong in recent years.
The doctor said Mr. Cheney's health would enable him to function fully "whatever his job is."
Reporters asked whether that would be true if the "job" were vice president, or even president, of the United States.
"Absolutely," the doctor said.
______
Ibexx |
