“I do not diagnose without examination and do not speak about public figures in general, unless there is evidence of such profound danger to public health”

Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee has repeatedly called Trump mentally unfit for office, despite the fact that she has never even met him. This has been widely condemned as an ethical violation of her profession.

As concerns grow about Joe Biden’s mental health, Lee is now refusing to apply the same standard to the former Vice President.

As Professor Jacobson pointed out, watching Biden has become sad. It is obvious to anyone who watches clips of Biden campaigning, that he is not as sharp as he used to be.

Bandy Lee suddenly thinks diagnosing someone from afar is inappropriate.

Nancy LeTourneau writes at the Washington Monthly:

Brandy X. Lee, one of the mental health professionals who has been very vocal about Trump’s unfitness for office, explained why a declination to diagnose Biden is in keeping with professional standards. I do not diagnose without examination and do not speak about public figures in general, unless there is evidence of such profound danger to public health and well-being because of serious signs of mental instability in a public servant, that it would be a public disservice not to share the knowledge and training that I have. Biden has not risen to this threshold… I never spoke up about a president or a presidential candidate either before or after Donald Trump, and neither have thousands of mental health professionals who have come forth with similar concerns in ways that are unprecedented in U.S. history, for any president of any party. I only speak up when there is a medical need of such great magnitude as to risk the survival of the human species. This is definitively Donald Trump, not Biden. Nor is it Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, or any other false equivalences people wish to create for political purposes.

As recently as three days ago, Lee was repeating her claims about Trump.

Igor Derysh wrote at Salon:

Yale psychiatrist: Trump is “putting lives at risk” with coronavirus; Pence is “enabling” him President Trump’s preoccupation with his own image amid the spread of the coronavirus is “putting lives at risk” and Vice President Pence is only “enabling” him, Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee told Salon in an interview this week. Lee is a forensic psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine who also teaches at Yale Law School and has spent the last three years urging Congress to respond more forcefully to the dangers posed by what she sees as the president’s deteriorating mental health. Lee, who consults widely with state and foreign governments on public health approaches to violence prevention, urged the House Judiciary Committee to include a panel of mental health experts during Trump’s impeachment and called for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to request an involuntary 72-hour psychiatric hold of the president.

It becomes increasingly clear that Lee is using her position to influence politics for purely partisan reasons.

How does the Yale administration justify this?



