Why Biden's age fears are exaggerated

Joe Biden was lying on the operating table and was about to be operated on for his second cerebral aneurysm, when the doctor told him that he was at risk of not recovering.

"What is the most likely thing that will happen if I live?" Biden asked him. "Good," the doctor said, "the side of the brain on which the first aneurysm is placed controls your ability to speak."

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That's when Biden, blundering, said, "Why the hell did not they say that before the 1988 campaign?" That could have saved us a lot of trouble, do you know what I mean? "

This joke, which was told by Biden in a speech in 2013, has gained new relevance now that he is again in the election campaign for the president and faces questions about his gaffes. Although Biden has a long-standing reputation for verbal blunders, they are now inextricably linked to the age of 76.

According to experts in aging and the brain, Biden's age and mental health concerns are probably exaggerated, as are the actuarial tables used by the insurance industry to assess the health and longevity of clients.

The two brain aneurysms that Biden underwent in 1988 were completely treated and he showed no signs of a mental disorder, said Dr. Neal Kassell, who operated on Biden three decades ago. Mr. Biden also did not suffer brain damage that would haunt him with age, Kassell said.

"It's just as sharp as it was 31 years ago. I have not seen any change, "Kassell said. "I can tell you with absolute certainty that he has not suffered any brain injury, either because of the bleeding or the operations that he has suffered. There was no damage whatsoever. "

Mr. Biden is not the only candidate to question his age – five presidential candidates are 70 or older, including Donald Trump, 73 – but there is no need to worry about others .

The oldest candidate, Bernie Sanders, will turn 78 next month – an average life expectancy of a two-year-old man in the United States. The youngest candidate in her seventies is Elizabeth Warren, 70 years old. Trump's little-known Republican challenger, former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, is 74 years old.

With the prospect that the next president may be the oldest to take office, a team of researchers from the American Federation for Research on Aging published a study last month to answer this morbid question: what is the likelihood that they die during their tenure?

The answer: not very.

"Their survival prospects go well beyond the office's four-year mandate. In the end, their chronological age does not matter, "said Dr. S. Jay Olshansky, who led the study.

Of course, researchers, like most of us, can not predict death: their life expectancy projections are based on estimates of the entire population listed in actuarial tables used by the public. insurance sector and the Social Security Administration. There is no better way to estimate their longevity or health without an individual medical examination of candidates and a review of their medical records, they said.

But "there was nothing to suggest that we could think that the age of an individual, in itself, should be a disqualifying factor for running for president," Olshansky said.

For a person of Sanders' age and sex, the study sets the chance of survival at 76.8% at the end of a four-year term. Corresponding figures for the other candidates are Biden at 79.2%, Weld at 83.6%, Trump at 84.8% and Warren at 91.8%.

But Olshansky points out that presidential candidates are probably healthier than the average American citizen – and that they will probably live longer than average. People who have good health care, are better educated and generally have a longer pension.

"They all belong to a subgroup of the population that is privileged. And privileged subgroups tend to live longer and better than average, "said Olshansky. "Although Bernie Sanders may have claimed the opposite, he is part of the 1%. In fact, it looks more like a hundredth of a percent. "

Olshansky said that older candidates could belong to a group of so-called 'super-people', people who live in the 1980s but show mental acuity as if they were in their 50s or sixty.

Emily Rogalski, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences specializing in the study of superintendents, said it was extremely difficult to "determine a person's cognitive abilities simply by knowing their chronological age. ".

With respect to Biden's previous brain surgery, Rogalski said she could not comment because she had not evaluated it.

"It's hard to specifically comment on a person's cognitive status without knowing more about their medical history," she said.

Olshansky echoed his statement and stated that it was also "inappropriate" for psychologists and psychiatrists to comment on Trump's mental acuity without having analyzed it. And, he said, it's an exaggeration to turn the gaffes of candidates into human error more than understandable.

"When you hear someone on television and make a mistake in a speech or debate, you have to give them a little bit of room," Olshansky said. "If you've already delivered a speech, it's not easy to stand in front of a crowd of people – especially in front of television cameras with millions of viewers – and avoid verbal mistakes."

Biden's doctor, Dr. Kevin O. Connnor, said in a written statement provided by the campaign: "Vice President Biden is in excellent physical condition. He is more than capable of managing the rigors of the campaign and the office for which he presents himself. "

Biden's former brain surgeon, Kassell, went even further: "I'm going to vote for the candidate who, I'm absolutely certain, has a functioning brain. And that reduces exactly to one. "

Although some think that the presidency gives more senior officials than the average adult, a study conducted in 2011 by Olshansky showed that this was not the case. On the basis of actuarial data, 23 of the 34 presidents who died as a result of natural causes lived longer than expected.

Although the large number of older candidates is new to the 2020 election cycle, there is no age and morbidity policy in the election campaign.

In 2008, for example, when Biden ran on Barack Obama's ticket, the campaign indirectly attacked the age of Republican candidate John McCain noting that his controversial candidate, Sarah Palin, was "at a heartbeat of the presidency." ". A one in three chance of living up to 80 years old. He died shortly before his 82nd birthday and would have completed the two terms of his presidency when he was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012.

Hal Tepfer, professor of actuarial science at Boston University, warned against too much confidence in the actuarial estimates of presidential candidates, whose way of life and education probably make them more likely to live longer long as the average American.

Anyway, says Tepfer, they are still in their seventies. And there is always a risk, be it for electors who choose a president or for the insurance industry that accepts a customer.

"They are always more likely to die than average," he said. That's why they probably can not buy insurance. If I'm 75, they will not sell me long term care insurance because they know I will use them. The same is true for life insurance. Why would they attribute a policy to a 77-year-old man if he will die soon and if they know they will never get their money back? "