The New Republic published a speculative piece suggesting that Donald Trump’s “bizarre, volatile behavior” might be the result of an STD.
Dr. Steven Beutler, an expert in infectious disease, wrote that while “there’s a great deal of information I don’t have access to,” he thinks it’s plausible that Trump might have neurosyphilis.
“Every time I see a new patient, he or she comes to me with incomplete information, or sometimes no information at all,” Beutler wrote. “Part of my training is to ask the right questions to get a sense of what the problem might be and make a list of possible diagnoses that could explain the problem. This is called ‘differential diagnosis.’ … Given the limited information available, neurosyphilis belongs in the differential diagnosis [for Trump],” he said, adding that Trump may have been exposed to the STD in the 1980s, “based on his own statements that he was sexually promiscuous.”
As evidence, Beutler lists several potential syphilis symptoms that he has observed in Trump, including irritability, insomnia, delusional thinking, grandiosity, squinting and patchy hair loss.
As Beutler noted in his article, it’s controversial for doctors to publicly make a diagnosis for a patient they haven’t seen. The American Psychiatric Association explicitly bans this practice under the so-called “Goldwater Rule,” a relic of the 1964 campaign.
The New Republic’s editors did not respond to Heat Street’s queries about why they published Beutler’s piece. Beutler also could not be reached for comment.
In a public letter released in December 2015, Donald Trump’s doctor, Harold Bornstein, said “unequivocally” that Trump “ will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”