Secretary Clinton Still Hospitalized

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton remains hospitalized for the fourth day since her medical team first predicted a 48-hour stay. Clinton's team continues to maintain that a full recovery is expected.

“It did not result in a stroke, or neurological damage,” Dr. Lisa Bardack of Mt. Kisco Medical Group in New York and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said in a joint statement. “To help dissolve this clot, her medical team began treating the secretary with blood thinners. She will be released once the medication dose has been established.” This is a standard and safe therapy for such a blood clot, according to a review published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005. Dr. Jan Stam of the University of Amsterdam said the clots are rare – affecting 3 to 4 people out of a million every year. Some doctors fear that blood thinners for a clot near the brain could be dangerous, but it’s the best way to dissolve the clot.

“More than 80 percent of all patients now have a good neurologic outcome,” Stam wrote. It’s also likely Clinton, who is 65, had a headache that could have tipped doctors to a potential problem – 90 percent of people who develop these clots have headaches, he said. The statement from Bardack and El-Bayoumi put an end to grumblings that Clinton was feigning illness to escape testifying about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Beghazi, Libya in which the ambassador and three other Americans were killed. Clinton had been expected to testify on Dec. 20 before the House of Representatives and Senate foreign affairs committees.

Both former President Bill Clinton and daughter Chelsea have been at the hospital daily.