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"I don't want to reopen it here ... " by citing a comparable example of a Democrat icon who took pills for back pain while holding the most powerful job in the world, the US Presidency, where he had to make decisions, say about the Cuban Missile Crisis that risked nuclear holocaust -- only because the Dems didn't seem particularly gleeful at the revelations from Historian Robert Dallek's book on JFK: "An Unfinished Life".

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/4543017.htm

Oops. Too late.

President Kennedy needed pills to survive each day, historian says
By TRACY CONNOR, New York Daily News, Nov. 17, 2002

NEW YORK - Racked with pain, President John F. Kennedy turned to a cornucopia of drugs - including painkillers, stimulants and anti-anxiety pills, his secret medical records reveal.

Historian Robert Dallek got unprecedented access to documents from the last eight years of JFK's life for his upcoming biography, "An Unfinished Life."

He found that at various times Kennedy took codeine, Demerol and methadone for pain, the stimulant Ritalin and anti-anxiety drugs meprobamate and Librium, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

The records also showed that Kennedy took barbiturates to help him sleep, thyroid hormone, the blood derivative gamma globulin and the anti-diarrhea agent Lomotil.

At the time of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy was taking antibiotics for a urinary tract infection, medicine for colitis, salt tablets and hydrocortisone and the male hormone testosterone to build up his strength and energy.

The medicine - as many as eight drugs a day at times - helped Kennedy cope with chronic and debilitating back pain, irritable bowel syndrome and the adrenal deficiency Addison's disease.

He also had high cholesterol, and osteoporosis left him with three fractured vertebrae that prevented him from putting on his own shoes without help.

The records show that Kennedy's ailments were far more serious than he and his doctors had publicly acknowledged. They included details of nine secret hospital stays for back and stomach illnesses between 1955 to 1957.

Discussing his findings in the December issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Dallek said Kennedy's secrecy about his poor health could be seen as "another stain" on his character.

But he noted that the medical records exposed the "quiet stoicism of a man struggling to endure extraordinary pain and distress."

Dallek, a Boston University professor, examined the medical files with the help of Washington internist Dr. Jeffrey Kelman.

"The most remarkable thing was the extent to which Kennedy was in pain every day of his presidency," Kelman said.