John McCain is in mostly good health. He's had melanoma three times but now "appears cancer-free." He's arthritic and takes cholesterol meds and has precancerous lesions removed periodically, but his heart is super-strong! He also has vertigo. The cancer probably won't come back within the next 8 years, though there's a chance of it. Also, "aides said McCain has had no mental evaluations in the past eight years and none was included in the documents." Meanwhile, have you heard that Barack Obama is terribly unhealthy? It's true, some guy at HuffPo says the Senator is totally unfit for duty.


The guy is Jeff Stier of The American Council on Science and Health. ACSH is a scientific health nonprofit sponsored in large part by the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and much of their research is dedicated to proving that consumer products, drugs, and chemicals will not kill you. But tobacco companies don't sponsor them, so they tend to be pretty anti-smoking. Also, as de facto "scientific" representatives of big industry, they lean a bit conservative, politically.

Barack Obama is a smoker. Well, maybe a former smoker, but probably still a sometimes smoker. Because christ, no one is strong enough to make it through a presidential campaign without a cigarette here and there. Obama was up to half a pack a day at some point during his 26 years as a smoker. (Lightweight.) Though usually more like a quarter-pack a day. He also says he quit in February of 2007.

Stier would like you to know that while everyone is running around worried about how the 71-year-old cancer survivor might not be able to stand up to the stresses of the Oval Office, the 46-year-old maybe former smoker poses a much greater risk. Because he's smoked 55,000-70,000 cigarettes in his life! Stier never really uses his fancy medical math to say what Obama's precise risk factor is for stroke or heart problems, but it must be pretty bad, because that is a lot of cigarettes.