[Sad News] President Trump Gave His Youngest Son Barron VD and AIDS

A Medical Theory for Donald Trump’s Bizarre Behavior
Many mental health professionals believe the president is ill. But what if 
the cause is an untreated STD?
NICHOLAS KAMM/Getty Images

Al Franken recently raised a provocative question about Donald Trump: Is he 
mentally ill? On HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher last week, the Minnesota 
senator claimed that some of his Republican colleagues have “great concern 
about the president’s temperament,” adding that “there’s a range in what 
they’ll say, and some will say that he’s not right mentally. And some are 
harsher.” Two days later, he told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “We all have this 
suspicion that—you know, that he’s not—he lies a lot…And, you know, that is 
not the norm for a president of the United States, or, actually, for a 
human being.”

Franken is not alone in his suspicions. Last year, Jeb Bush said of his 
Republican primary opponent, “I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but 
the guy needs therapy.” Senator Bernie Sanders recently called Trump 
“delusional in many respects, a pathological liar.” And Congressman Ted 
Lieu, a California Democrat, is introducing legislation that would require 
the White House to have a psychiatrist on staff. “I’m looking at it from 
the perspective of, if there are questions about the mental health of the 
president of the United States, what may be the best way to get the 
president treatment?” he told the Huffington Post.

Meanwhile, a debate is raging among mental health professionals about 
Trump’s mental state, and whether it’s unethical of them to speculate 
publicly about someone whom they haven’t examined (doing so violates 
psychiatrists’ code of ethics, the relevant section of which is called “the 
Goldwater rule” because of its association with a magazine survey of 
psychiatrists about Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee, 
in 1964). One online petition with nearly 24,000 signatures calls for 
Trump’s removal because he “manifests a serious mental illness that renders 
him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of 
President.” Another with 36,000 signatures declares that “Trump appears 
unable to control his compulsion and displays characteristics of all nine 
criteria to officially diagnose an individual with Narcissistic Personality 
Disorder.”

Physicians like me have also taken notice of Trump’s bizarre, volatile 
behavior. Given our experience, we can’t help but wonder if there’s a 
medical diagnosis to be made. After all, many medical conditions exhibit 
their first symptoms in the form of psychiatric issues and personality 
changes. One condition in particular is notable for doing so: 
Neurosyphilis.

      
      

      

      
    

Syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection, is sometimes referred to as 
“The Great Imposter” because of its ability to mimic many other conditions. 
It is commonly broken down into three stages. Primary syphilis is the most 
widely recognized form of the disease. It is characterized by the 
development of an ulcer, usually genital, a few weeks to a few months after 
sexual contact with an infected person. If the ulcer is not noticed, or not 
treated, it heals on its own, and the disease enters a dormant phase. But 
during this time, the bacteria—a spirochete called Treponema 
pallidum—spreads throughout the body without causing any symptoms.

A secondary stage of the disease is seen in some patients weeks or months 
later. These patients may develop a variety of systemic symptoms, such as 
rash, fever, and swollen glands. If not treated, the infection enters a 
prolonged latent phase, which can last decades. During this time, it is 
asymptomatic and it is not contagious. In some cases, this is followed by a 
tertiary stage, which is the most serious and may involve any organ in the 
body. It is seen 10 to 30 years after the initial infection, and is best 
known for causing neurologic and neuropsychiatric disease: Neurosyphilis.

The symptoms of neurosyphilis are protean, varying widely from one 
individual to another. Commonly recognized symptoms include irritability, 
loss of ability to concentrate, delusional thinking, and grandiosity. 
Memory, insight, and judgment can become impaired. Insomnia may occur. 
Visual problems may develop, including the inability of pupils to react to 
the light. This, along other ocular pathology, can result in photophobia, 
dimming of vision, and squinting. All of these things have been observed in 
Trump. Dementia, headaches, gait disturbances. and patchy hair loss can 
also be seen in later stages of syphilis.

Does Trump suffer from this condition? I cannot, of course, establish this 
diagnosis from a distance. There’s a great deal of information I don’t have 
access to, which could be critical in reaching the correct conclusion. In 
Trump’s case, there are many diagnostic possibilities, and we have very 
little background information because the slim medical summary he released 
was vague, unverifiable, and possibly outdated.

On the other hand, every time I see a new patient, he or she comes to me 
with incomplete information, or sometimes no information at all. 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 the “differential diagnosis.” From there, 
additional questions, examinations, and tests are performed that narrow 
down the list, usually to one unifying diagnosis.
 

Given the limited information available, neurosyphilis belongs in the 
differential diagnosis. We know Trump was potentially exposed to syphilis 
based on his own statements that he was sexually promiscuous in the 1980s, 
a period when syphilis cases were rapidly increasing in the U.S. “I’ve been 
so lucky in terms of that whole world,” he told Howard Stern in 1997, 
referring to his dating life the decade prior. “It is a dangerous world out 
there—it’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my 
personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave solider.”

If indeed Trump has neurosyphilis, he’d be in famous company. Al Capone had 
it. So did composers Frederick Delius and Franz Schubert. Many others were 
suspected of having it, including Hitler, Mussolini, and Ivan the Terrible. 
What might enable us to eliminate Trump from this group? Two simple blood 
tests, in combination, can determine whether a patient has syphilis now or 
had it in the past. If both tests are negative, then he doesn’t have 
neurosyphilis. If one or both tests are positive, further evaluation, 
probably including a spinal tap, would be in order.

The importance—both to Trump and the nation—of establishing or ruling out 
this diagnosis cannot be overstated, because this infection is treatable. 
Without treatment, however, the disease is progressive: It can make for a 
rather ugly end to one’s life. Whether Trump emerged unscathed from his 
“personal Vietnam” is now a question that he should explore with his 
personal physician.