I’m sitting here still not completely recovered from a cold that hit me two weeks ago. It occurs to me that although they may disappear from public view for a day or two from time to time, I have never seen any US President launch into a window-rattling coughing fit or try in vain to stem a gushing torrent of fluid from his nose. Considering that politicians go around shaking strangers’ hands all the time, they must catch colds just like the rest of us.
All I can figure is that the President is given much, much better cold medicine than anything you or I can get at the local drug store. All the cold medicines I’ve tried either render me totally unable to think straight or have little to no effect on any of my symptoms.
What is this magic stuff, and is it flat-out illegal for civilians to get, available via prescription but too expensive for anyone’s HMO to be willing to hand out, or something else?
I’ve wondered about this as well. What about game-show hosts? Alex Trebek never seems to have a sniffle, and after 20-some years you know he’s been sick for a couple of shows. What does he take?
I obviously have no secret inside information, but every time I’ve though about this, the simplest answer seemed most likely: Get as much rest as the position will allow (cancel all meetings with the NCAA Div. II women’s lacrosse champions) and treat whatever symptoms are present (fever-reducer, decongestant, cough suppressant.) I’m certainly not bringing my A-game when I have a cold, but I can fake it if I have to. (And don’t worry about speeches – that’s what teleprompters and speechwriters are for.)
Well, for shows that are aired on the media, you can do a lot with make-up to hide red and chapped noses and watery eyes.
Fits of coughing, at least on non-live shows, are filtered out by doing just another take.
There are powerful cough suppresants out there. I suppose they work well enough for the few live speeches (each lasting 15 minutes, tops) a president with a cold has to give.
As for cancelling appointments, a president does dat all the time, so no-one will know if the reason is More Important Stuff Came Up, of if the Prez just cought a bug.
Jeopardy! and other game shows are not broadcast live; they’re taped. And furthermore they usually tape several shows a day and air them months later. This means that if the host is too sick to work, there’s enough lag time that he can take the day off without disrupting the broadcast schedule. (In practice, it would screw up the shooting schedule, so the producers may find it more economical to use a replacement host.)
FTR, I seem to recall one or two shows where Alex Trebek apologised for having a cold, so presumably he just takes a lot of medication and uses the cough button a lot. Other stuff they don’t want on the air (sneezes, nose-blowing, etc.) can always be edited out in postproduction.
I’m usually functional when I have a cold (the flu is a different animal). Just plain OTC decongestants and cough medicine will do just fine to keep him in shape presidential appearances (though he may cut down a bit).
Also, most appearances you see are edited excerpts. No one is going to waste airtime on showing the president sneeze or cough.
The premise that there’s some kind of secret remedy for a cold that’s so expensive only the president can afford it seems kind of misguided to me. Any doctor will tell you that you can’t cure a cold. All you can do is take things that make the symptoms more bearable, and those things often don’t help that much anyway. Whether you’re the president or Joe Blow, your cold has to run its course, and how that goes depends on the state of your immune system.
And however much the president shakes hands, I bet he rarely shakes hands with someone who’s sick. Heads of state can always postpone meetings, while you or I must go to work, cold or not. And the president doesn’t have to hold on to subway rails, or push open doors. In fact, he works in a very restricted environment, which is probably cleaned very often. So being president means you probably don’t get exposed to cold viruses that often.
What guizot said, it’s easy to avoid or delay events when you’re the president. The same with Trebek. They normally tape on only two days per week, and run months ahead of air time, so if he misses some shows it’s easy to catch up. And I think that Jeopardy champion guy apologized and restated his position on Trebek. It turned Alex had organic parts, so was technically a cyborg.
I have no evidence to back this theory up, but it stands to reason that getting sick less often, getting sick less severely, or getting sick in a way that is easier to treat or hide from others is likely a competitive advantage for both politicians and entertainers. I mean, it probably is in general, since being more productive tends to be, but even more so for those in the public eye.
All things being equal, no one wants a sickly president or entertainer. So someone who gets sick less often is going to make a better impression on people who see him on TV.
No, not expensive. Rather, maybe there’s a medicine out there that has to be administered just right, so they certainly won’t sell it over the counter, and maybe not even by prescription. But maybe it’s a Hospital Strength kind of thing, such that they’ll only give it to people who are unter constant medical supervision.
True enough. But again, maybe there’s some super-potent stuff for the symptoms that only top VIPs can get.
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What I’d like to know is what live entertainers do when they have a really sore throat or laryngitis. If I have that, I can’t sing…I always wondered what big name folks who MUST go on do, shoot a gigantic dose of steroids straight into their throats or something?
Actually, I’d be willing to bet that they dope the President up with some kind of anti-viral medication and anything else that they think will work, without making him too loopy. For reasons of national security, they’ll want to keep the President and Vice President as healthy as they possibly can. I remember that when Clinton broke his leg, and Gore screwed up a tendon, they immediately operated on them to speed the healing process, whereas you or I would probably just be fitted with a cast or told to keep off it for six months. And while it makes sense that they do this (after all, you don’t want the guy with his finger on the button loopy on pain meds), I can’t help be a little miffed that I can’t afford anywhere near the same level of health care.
Remember also that Presidents have always been, er, “men of certain years”. They’ve also all spent a LOT of time pressing palms, generally for a decade or two before they even campaign for the presidency. All that prior exposure means that their immune system databanks are more well rounded than the rest of us - so, to a certain extent, the President probably doesn’t get colds as often (anymore) as the rest of us.
Small children get upwards of 12 colds a year - people over 50 get something like 2. ETA: Oops, I hit submit before I found a cite. Hang on!
An Arky, singers use hot tea and lemon and honey and cough drops and rest and slippery elm tablets - and they still have to cancel performances all the time. Although there probably is some “natural selection” going on here - if you’ve the kind of body where every little bug goes to your throat, you’re probably not going to become a professional singer. You’d have to cancel too many gigs and voice lessons to be a success.
When my daughter was in the NICU, however, her doctor did come down with a cold and he took…something. Wouldn’t say what it was, he’d only say that it was “very hard on a person’s body and no one would want to take it unless their cold was literally a matter of life and death” - and his was, to the micropreemies he cared for. (As I recall it, there were a few critical cases at that moment, and he wanted to ensure continuity of care, rather than call in a replacement doc.) But he had three days of “coming down with something”, took the mysterious Potion X, and spent another day looking tired before he was entirely better. I hate that I don’t know what he took, because it gives the whole story an UL, tin-foil hat wearing kind of vibe. But there it is. Maybe some sort of anti-viral, like Cipro, generally reserved for more deadly infectious viruses.
