On May 7, Bush's chief attending physician, Dr. Burton Lee, gave a briefing at Bethesda
in which he disclosed that Bush's bout with atrial fibrillation had been caused by an
overactive thyroid gland. Lee assured the press that the problem had been an overactive
thryoid secreting too much of the hormore thyroxin, which helps to regulate the body's
metabolic rate. This hormone goes into the circulatory system, and thus can disturb the
proper functioning of the heart. Lower the rate of production of thyroid hormone, and
everything would return to normal, was the message. Lee said that Bush would undergo a
thyroid scan and other tests to help determine the appropriate treatment. Contradicting
earlier statements by Fitzwater that there had been no recent danger signals regarding
Bush's health, Lee now revealed that Bush had experienced a small weight loss and
episodes of unusual fatigue during jogging over the previous few weeks. The weight loss
had been of eight or nine pounds during the month before Bush was hospitalized. Bush
had been tired enough to complain, "Gee whiz, I must be getting old," on earlier joggings
runs. [fn 31] Some of Bush's symptoms appear to have emerged in February, during the
time of the Iraq war. Lee claimed that Bush had never undergone tests of his thyroid
functions because he had shown no symptoms of thyroid disturbance-- a patent absurdity.
According to Burton Lee, the first indication of a thyroid disturbance came on Monday
morning, when a blood test showed that the level of thyroid hormone in Bush's blood was
above normal. These results were then confirmed with repeated blood tests.
The official White House line was that this was good news, since thyroid disorders were
easily treated. Fitzwater recounted that "The President was overjoyed. It means the
problem was not a problem with his heart and that it is virtually 100 percent treatable."
Burton Lee chimed in with his opinion that biochemical hyperthyroidism is "easily
treatable."
On May 9, Bush's doctors announced that he was suffering from what they chose to call
Graves' disease, a condition in which the thyroid gland becomes enlarged and produces
excessive levels of hormone in response to "false messages" from other parts of the body
about how much of the hormone is needed. Graves' disease is a disorder of the immune
system in which the body produces an antibody which "mimics" the hormone that usually
tells the thyroid how much thyroxin to produce. One decisive test was said to have
involved Bush's swallowing of a small dose of radioactive iodine, followed by
observation with a device resembling a geiger counter to obtain an image of the thyroid.
This thyroid scan revealed a gland that was enlarged, and absorbing iodine at faster than
the normal rate. During this press conference, Bush's medical team also conceded that
Bush had experienced a renewed bout of atrial fibrillation in the form of a "rather brief
episode" during the night of Tuesday, May 8.
During this press conference, Burton Lee once again repeated the story that Bush's
thyroid had never been tested during his previous annual or other checkups. He offered
the estimate that Bush's thyroid condition had developed after his last medical checkup,
which had been conducted on March 27, 1991. According to Dr. Kenneth Burman,a
thyroid specialist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center who had been assigned to Bush's
case, the issue of whether thyroid tests should be a part of routine physical examination
was controversial. Burman added that his personal opinion was that such tests were not