Within limits, please, Mr. President.
President Trump, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, discussing his health:
The large dose of aspirin he chooses to take daily has caused him to bruise easily, he said, and he has been encouraged by his doctors to take a lower dose. But Trump has declined to switch because he has been taking it for 25 years. “I’m a little superstitious,” he said in the interview.
“They say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood, and I don’t want thick blood pouring through my heart,” Trump said. “I want nice, thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense?”
Because blockages from blood clots can cause life-threatening events such as strokes, pulmonary embolisms, and heart attacks, it likely does make sense for the president to continue taking a certain amount of aspirin. But the size of the dose matters, and the Mayo Clinic notes that, “while daily aspirin can help prevent a clot-related stroke, it may increase the risk of a bleeding stroke. A bleeding stroke also is called a hemorrhagic stroke.” The Mayo Clinic also warns, “If you’re taking aspirin and you need surgery or dental work, tell the healthcare professional. You and your healthcare team may need to take steps to prevent excessive bleeding.”
If President Trump were to need surgery, his doctors would likely want him to either stop or reduce any blood-thinning medication he was taking for a period of time before the surgery, likely a week or so.
The problem is that the president of the United States always lives with a certain amount of risk, and we’ve already seen two serious assassination attempts made against Trump’s life.
Recall this account of the aftermath of Trump’s ear getting grazed by a bullet in Butler, Pa.:
Wiles, Cheung and Scavino walked into his hospital room, guarded by Secret Service. Trump was sitting up in bed, still wearing his suit. A bandage covered his ear. There was blood everywhere.
“It was bleeding like a bitch,” he would say later in an interview for this book. “They thought I had four or five bullets in me because there was so much blood.”
At some point in the next three years, President Trump may well need emergency surgery, and any blood thinner in his system would make that surgery much riskier than it would otherwise be. I’d prefer if the president listened to his doctor and modified the dose of aspirin he takes daily to align with his doctor’s recommendations; “superstition” does not seem like a sufficient reason to take an action with potentially harmful health effects.