Response to a comment.

This comment was left by an anonymous reader but since it epitomizes many that have been posed, I felt compelled to address it.

The commentors remarks are in regular type and I have interjected my answers in Italics.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "FDR's Deadly Secret.":

i found this subject most interesting but it will prove a frustrating thesis due to lack of definitive proof....however that does not mean that we cannot know....

i was surprised to learn that fdr was a frequent visitor to bethesda naval hospital and needed 9 pints during a blood transfusion...

the nine pints (and possibly more) were administered not in one session, but over a period of two months. These are only the ones that we can prove with certainty

of interest is why there was no autopsy of roosevelt and why all of his medical records were destroyed....bethesda surely has some for which an enterprising investigator should submit a foia request to have those records released....

No autopsy was performed because it would have revealed many facts about FDR's health that were hidden then and many that are still hidden today. There have been many FOIA (freedom of information act) requests over the years, a nunber of which have reavealed considerable information, vis a vis those of Kenneth Crispell and Carlos Gomez in 1981. Virtually every Roosevelt historian interested in pursuing FDR's health has gone down this avenue. There is very little that can be accomplished with further requests.

a medical file as deep as fdr's does not just disappear without concerted help...

quite true indeed. See: Ross T. McIntire and Howard G. Bruenn

a cranky reviewer on amazon suggests that fdr's reading by hand was due to failing eyesight - astigmatism from old age and that he had used that method since 1938 rather than de novo during the congressional report as this book reports although the reviewer offers no proof about the old age causation.

the reviewer you mention is a non-physician with an obvious desire to discredit the book. his ideas about failing eyesight are laughingly inept. Our conclusions are based on four years of intensive research in consultation with hundres of top physicians. I am a board certified neurologist and stand by my findings without qualification. If the commentor can produce a single expert of equal standing, I would be more apt to listen. To this point, none of the hundreds of my colleagues have found reason to dispute my findings.

this same reviewer mentions that fdr's paralysis was due to Guillain-Barré syndrome rather than polio and that the blood transfusion could have been due to diverticulitis....again no proof was offered....

See our blog post that discusses Guillain Barre Syndrome. FDR had polio. Likewise, the diverticulitis theory has been discussed with dozens of board certified gastroenterologists and surgeons and is not the reason for the GI bleed.

this book covers an excellent subject and should not be dismissed out of hand as some know-nothing types are wont to do...

Thank you!