Doctors quashed rumors that the removal would have negative effects on the Senators health. Various People had expressed concern that the growth is cancerous.
The campaign team reported that the growth, which has left the Senator wearing a bandage, was noticed during John McCain’s standard three-month checkup. The operation was carried out in phoenix.
This not the first time that the Arizona Senator is having “spots” removed off his face. In fact, John McCain has had four malignant melanomas removed in the past. Melanoma is a form of skin cancer, which is sometimes associated to severe sunburn. It is said that McCain was exposed to sever sunburn/heat during his prison days in Vietnam. McCain was a war prisoner for five and a half years in Vietnam.
McCain hinted briefly on the issue during an interview with reporters on Monday. He said that mole removal would not pose any major health concern or challenge to his presidential bid.
"As I do every three months, I visited my dermatologist this morning, she said I was doing fine, took a small little nick from my cheek, as she does regularly, and that will be biopsied, just to make sure that everything is fine," said presidential hopeful John McCain.
McCain also expressed his concern over the health of fellow country Americans and gave a rare advice on the issue.
"But I want to again urge all Americans to wear sunscreen particularly this summer, stay out of the sun as much as possible. Wear sunscreen, and if you ever have any slight discoloration, please go to your dermatologist or your doctor, and get it checked up on. Melanoma is a preventable occurrence. It really is," said McCain.
John McCain is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and presumptive Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 election.
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Is John McCain Healthy Enough to Serve as President?
Many voters have concerns about John McCain's age and health issues. Many wonder, and mainstream media refuses to ask, if John McCain suffers from PTSD from his the five years of captivity, including three years in solitary and torture so extreme that, as he put it, "broke" him to the point he attempted suicide several times. One of the most important considerations with regard to medical predictions of future PTSD, is how the initial trauma was dealt with.
In 1999, Dr. Michael M. Ambrose, director of the Robert E. Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies, was contacted by John McCain to conduct a mental health review. The quality of the review is a matter of dispute as some say Dr. Ambrose did a full medical exam of the patient and others say the doctor only reviewed McCain's old medical records.
After the evaluation was completed, John McCain's 1999 campaign released a statement by Dr. Ambrose, which stated:
"McCain has never been diagnosed with or treated at the center for a psychological or psychiatric disorder (The term PTSD first appeared in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980, years after John McCain's initial military medical evaluations.). He has been subject to an extensive battery of psychological tests and following his last examination in 1993, we judged him to be in good physical and mental health.''
The McCain campaign press release included a statement by Dr. Ambrose, which reveals John McCain created a fantasy world in order to escape the reality of captivity and torture. They further stated McCain always heard the guards coming with his food, but "was often so much in his private world, that he strongly resented their coming around and bringing him back to reality by intruding. He was enjoying his fantasies so much."
"findings suggest that it is less what happens at the time of a trauma (e.g., disrupted encoding) that predicts PTSD than what occurs thereafter (i.e., persistent avoidance)." [John Briere, Ph.D., Catherine Scott, M.D., and Frank Weathers, Ph.D.]
The keyword here is 'persistent avoidance' which was evidenced by the findings of Dr. Ambrose.
"The presence of dissociative symptoms soon after exposure to trauma has been found to predict the subsequent development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)" [Gary Tucker, MD, Published in Journal Watch Psychiatry October 9, 2002]
"The amount of dissociation that follows directly after a trauma predicts PTSD" [American Psychiatric Association]
"Individuals that are more likely to dissociate during a traumatic event are considerably more likely to develop chronic PTSD" [Brown, Scheflin and Hammond (1998). Memory, Trauma Treatment, And the Law.]
"In several studies, dissociation at the time of a trauma (peritraumatic dissociation) has been found to predict symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder at follow-up assessments' [Michael W. Otto, PhD, Published in Journal Watch Psychiatry July 21, 2005]
" early numbing contributed to the prediction of later PTSD" [Center for the Treatment and Study of Anxiety, Psychiatry Department, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine]
"Peritraumatic dissociation is frequently considered to be a risk factor for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)" [Doris C. Breh PhD, Department of Psychotraumatology, Psychosomatic University Hospital Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany]
Ambrose later told the Associated Press "He had a very healthy way of dealing with his experiences." One of the examiners even noted that McCain had improved his ability to control his infamous temper due to his years of torture and captivity.
Anyone familiar with Workers' Compensation or personal injury cases understands full well you can pull the right strings or pay a 'company' doctor to say anything necessary to help your client.
It is worth noting the1999 McCain campaign only released a small number of redacted medical records, the pages were not allowed to be photocopied and only a few select news organizations were privy to what few medical records were made available under these conditions.
John McCain has a consistent history of out of control outbursts of anger and even admits an adverse reaction to the sound of jangling keys. Author Robert Timberg, who McCain has said "knows more about me than I do," calls these episodes "an eruption of temper out of all proportion to the provocation" and says they are a result of Vietnam coming "back to haunt him."
VA studies have shown time and again that POWs suffer a much higher risk of developing PTSD than combat veterans. Even so, to this date, mainstream media still has not pushed for full disclosure of John McCain's military medical records and refuses to ask the one simple question:
'Is John McCain emotionally fit for the most stressful job in our country, the President of the United States, our Commander in Chief?"