The White House released a memo Friday from President Donald Trump’s physician summarizing his visit to Walter Reed Army Medical Center earlier in the day, which included a Covid vaccine booster and a flu shot.
Trump’s doctor, Sean P. Barbarella, said in the one-page document that Trump “remains in exceptional health, exhibiting strong cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, and physical performance.”
Trump’s visit to Walter Reed was described in the memo as a “scheduled follow-up,” which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday had characterized as a “his routine yearly check-up” — despite being Trump’s second such visit after undergoing an annual physical exam in April.
The memo said Friday’s check-up was part of Trump’s “ongoing health maintenance plan.” The president underwent “advanced imaging, laboratory testing, and preventative health assessments,” his physician wrote.
Barbarella described the labs as “exceptional, including stable metabolic, hematologic, and cardiac parameters.” He characterized Trump’s “cardiac age” as “approximately 14 years younger than his chronological age.”
In this case the doctors used an electrocardiogram, or a test that checks the electrical activity of the heart, to estimate Trump’s cardiac age. This can be done in conjunction with artificial intelligence or other analyses to provide more insight into somebody’s risk of heart disease.
Barbarella said Trump, 79, received the flu shot and a Covid vaccine booster “in preparation for upcoming international travel.” Trump is scheduled to leave for the Middle East on Sunday after helping secure a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas this week.
Covid shots have become harder to get under the Trump administration. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its Covid vaccine guidance on Monday, limiting its recommendation for the shots only to people 65 or older or those with an underlying health condition — and only after they consult doctors, nurses or pharmacists. That change comes after many states had set their own guidance on vaccines, resulting in a complex landscape with a patchwork of different vaccine policies, making it harder to find the shot depending on where a person lives.
The CDC’s acting director, Jim O’Neill, signed off on that change based on the recommendations of the agency’s vaccine advisory panel, which Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overhauled earlier this year after firing all its members and replacing them with his own picks.
Former CDC Director Susan Monarez testified during a Senate committee hearing last month that Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, pressured her to pre-emptively approve vaccine recommendations from the panel, and grew “upset” when she refused to do so.
Trump’s visit to Walter Reed also comes a month after he rebuffed rumors that he was in poor health as a result of a persistent bruise on the back of his hand, and after he did not appear in public for several consecutive days.
Trump was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a non-life threatening condition that causes blood to pool in his legs, in July. The condition can cause swelling, pain, skin discoloration and in some cases can lead to the development of ulcers.
Trump became the oldest person elected U.S. president in November. At the time, he was just a few months older than former President Joe Biden was when he was elected four years earlier.
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