Call for Brain Scans of Presidential Candidates to Detect Mental Health Problems

[Segami]

Oh oh,...this kind of test for Johnny McLAME would be like giving Superman a bad dose of Kryptonite and would activate the nasty GOP presidential reject lever if they ever implemented such a test of Maverick McLame's brain functions. Kidding aside, this kind of brain examination should become a standard requirement for those seeking the highest office in this country considering they would be only finger tips away from controlling a lot of little RED BUTTONS that could make this world of ours go BOOM. And then we don't want some UNELECTED officials covering up their candidate's brain malfunctions and taking over the reigns of running this country themselves from within....do we?


" "As a neuropsychiatrist and brain-imaging expert, I want our elected leaders to be some of the 'brain healthiest people' in the land," Amen writes.

Amen notes that President Ronald Reagan clearly exhibited the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease during his second term, which led to unelected officials taking over the reigns of government. Brain examinations, he says, have shown success in detecting Alzheimer's between five and nine years before symptoms appear - which, in Reagan's case, would have been before his first term in office.


<http://www.naturalnews.com/023572.html>

[nancyr]

1. I totally agree.

It should be mandatory. We've had entirely too many challenged presidents!

[lame54]

2. Also for those with Bush/Cheney '04 stickers still on their cars

[Segami]

3. LOL!...They should perform an autopsy on them.

[Indenturedebtor]

4. Brain scans can detect a great deal more than alzheimers!

You can even tell if someone is mildly schizo, has done a lot of drugs, etc. Not that I care if a pres has done a lot of drugs... I just don't want them to be stupid or crazy.

This is a great idea but it will likely not happen.

[beam me up scottie]

5. But who would interpret the results of such scans?

Remember all the bru ha ha about Terri Schiavo's ? And it still ended up being settled by a judge.

[Segami]

6. Agreed, but I'm sure some bell curve scoring system could be devised

and customized specifically for presidential candidates that implements a no-name test result for each candidate in order to maintain some level of secrecy & objectivity as a select panel of ten score the test results.

[beam me up scottie]

16. Yes, but if they can steal an election, they can doctor an image.

They could alter it to either qualify or eliminate a candidate.

Besides, I don't think we know enough about the brain to judge mental instability based on a scan.

[Segami]

19. Yes, I hear you. Kind of reminds me a bit like the biggest Tour de France

doping scandal occurred on Alpe d'Huez in 1978 when the
Belgian race leader Michel Pollentier failed his post-stage
drug test not because anything illegal was detected in his
urine but because the sample he provided did not come
from his bladder. Instead it arrived in the flask, via a glass
rod and some tubing, from a rubber bulb concealed under
his arm. Officials became suspicious when Pollentier began
pumping his elbow in and out as if playing a set of bagpipes....lol!

[beam me up scottie]

20. I never heard that!

How embarrassing for him, and how stupid. That is hilarious.:D

[LeftishBrit]

7. In Bush's case, they could have combined it with his colonoscopy.

[Segami]

8. LOL! That makes the term ' shit for brains ' seem very much applicable in his case.

[WillowTree]

9. Oh yeah. That wouldn't be invasive or anything.

Not much it wouldn't.

[bdamomma]

10. this should be mandatory.

psychiatric and psychological and drug/alcohol testing too.

[Segami]

12. I don't see the logic for why its NOT mandatory. Every president, with the stroke of a pen signature

could order troops into battle and bomb countries and be responsible for the deaths of many innocent civilians. I would think that its imperative and an absolute must to have a Commander and Chief to step into office that is definitely a clear-thinking, sane leader that doesn't entertain any personal childhood bedtime delusions along with sweaty spontaneous mental fits.

[cbayer]

11. Brain scans (CT, MRI) are really not very good tools for diagnosing psychiatric disorders.

You may see some brain "shrinkage" on a scan, but you can not make a diagnosis of Alzheimers based on these tests.

There are much more effective tools for screening for cognitive disorders.

[wryter2000]

14. Thank you

Bush's organic brain problems might show up, but his sociopathy wouldn't.

[cbayer]

21. Correct.

It should also be noted that this recommendation is coming from a physician who owns a chain of of private brain imaging clinics. Gee, why would he want to promote the idea that brain scans can diagnosis psychiatric disorders?

:shrug:

[Segami]

15. Even so, have any of the so called " more effective tools for screening for cognitive disorders "

been mandated as a presidential test requirement? Why not with so much at stake riding on a single man or woman's cognitive state of mind?

[cbayer]

17. If they were to be mandated, I would hope they would be mandated

within the party that is putting the candidate on the ballot. It is in that party's best interest to not have a candidate with a significant psychiatric or cognitive disorder.

The problem with doing it at a national level occurs when you determine who gets to decide what is acceptable and what is not. It's just too arbitrary for me.

[bdamomma]

13. kick

[scheming daemons]

18. In 2000, they did a brain scan on Bush.... but they found nothing.

;-)

[wryter2000]

22. LOL

And they did one on Sean Hannity and found a tic-tac rattling around in that big head.

(Stolen from Momma and the Mooks)

[Segami]

23. Thats not true. Here's proof.

<>

[Wizard777]

24. Nixon was the begining of a string of mentally defective Republican Presidential candidates.

To democrats the person in charge is the guy with the clip board. To the republicans the person in charge is the guy ranting, I don't understand! I don't understand! I don't understand! I don't understand! See Bush v. Kerry debate for proof of that.

[Hidden Stillness]

25. I Do Not Agree With This Premise at All

I agree with the posters who commented that brain scans are not particularly helpful for finding mental/emotional/sociopathic opinions or behavior; something else is needed. As the problem is really more the threat of a criminal, corrupt or predatory/exploitive person in the White House (for example), who abuses people and then has no conscience, cuts them off health care and feels nothing, etc., then I think a more useful measure than a scan that relates to nothing of these things, would be a really perceptive, targeted questionnaire or profile, on such things as "predatory personality," "lack of remorse," "lack of empathy," etc.

Mental illness is not the problem. No matter how routinely mentally ill people are blamed for crimes, etc., the violent crime rate for the mentally ill is much lower than for the so-called "normal" population--they are the victims typically, not the attackers. Who is mentally ill? Abraham Lincoln, who suffered from depression? People who have bi-polar disorder (manic depressive), such as both Patty Duke and Jane Pauley? People who have social phobias that are debilitating? I do not want these people kept out of the public/political arena. I actually want more sensitive, even troubled people who are aware of these kinds of issues, and you hope, will even fight for them specifically. Sometimes, only those who suffer from something, understand or even care about it at all.

The problem is not necessarily that people have mental/emotional problems--it is that some people are corrupt, corporate criminals, and are breaking the law and defying the Constitution.

[opihimoimoi]

26. McNemic ...I don need no stinking neuron detector when looking at Johnny

I know he is lacking a few quarts....

[madeline_con]

27. All joking aside, I find it hard to believe that anyone who spent

years being held as a POW and tortured could come away with a "normal" brain. It had to have deleterious effects on him. :(

[eppur_se_muova]

28. Don't judge a brain by its scan.

Report: Man with Almost No Brain Has Led Normal Life

French doctors are amazed that a 44-year-old civil servant with an abnormally small brain has led a normal life with a slightly lower than normal IQ, according to a report on Physorg.com.

Doctors said the father of two went to the Hopital de la Timone in Marseille with mild weakness in his left leg. He was given a CT scan and an MRI, which showed that his cerebral cavities or ventricles had massively expanded, according a case history to be published in Saturday's Lancet.

"The brain itself, meaning the grey matter and white matter, was completely crushed against the sides of the skull," Dr. Lionel Feuillet told AFP. "The images were most unusual... the brain was virtually absent."

The condition is called Dandy Walker complex and is a genetically sporadic disorder that occurs in one out of every 25,000 live births, mostly in females. Although many with Dandy Walker develop dramatic symptoms from the condition, such as an enlarged skull, jerky muscle movements and problems with the nerves that control the face, the condition also can develop unnoticed.
***
more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,290610,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandy-Walker_syndrome