McCain Melanoma Ad Pulled

MSNBC halted the airing of an ad by the groups Democracy for America and Brave New PAC which noted John McCain's past bouts with skin cancer. The ad also demanded that he release his medical records to the public.

NBC spokeswoman Allison Gollust said,

"The ad had not been thoroughly vetted prior to air, and has since been removed from our commercial rotation."

CNN had already declined to run the ad, but MSNBC ran it several times Thursday evening and Friday morning before pulling it.

But why shouldn't Americans care about McCain's health? Why shouldn't he release his medical records? As I've previously said, his age make the choice of his Vice-Presidential running mate of prime importance. If you vote for him, you'd darn well better be sure you would want Sarah Palin in his place.

In fact, in April, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta wrote about McCain (emphasis mine):

From what we have gathered, McCain has Stage IIA melanoma, which carries an average 10-year survival rate of 66 percent. Dermatologists say McCain’s odds are better because the odds improve the longer you go without a recurrence. (Note that McCain might have just had a recurrence; he had another mole removed in July.)

If you see the pictures of his face, you will no doubt see a scar running down the left side and persistent puffiness of his left cheek. This is from the aggressive operation he had to remove the cancer as well as the lymph nodes in the area, as well as part of his parotid gland. When we show those pictures to independent doctors, some have told us an operation of that magnitude would’ve been done only for a much more serious and aggressive cancer than IIA melanoma. Other doctors disagree, saying McCain’s aggressive operation may have been done out of an abundance of caution, where doctors removed more lymph nodes and other tissue than is normally done, because he is, well, John McCain.

As the ad says:

Caption: John McCain is 72 years old and has had skin cancer 4 times.

Michael D. Fratkin, MD: The relevance of knowing the details of his course with melanoma are very important. Another bout of cancer for John McCain while he's President of the United States would profoundly impact his capacity to lead.

Noah Craft, MD, PhD: Melanoma in the deadliest of skin cancers and the chances of survival if you have melanoma spread through your body are very, very slim.

Caption: Why won't John McCain release his Medical Records?

It should be noted that Fratkin specializes in Emergency Medicine, but that Craft is a dematologist and his Harbor UCLA Medical Center Division of Dematology bio says (emphasis mine):

He completed his dermatology residency at UCLA in the STAR program. There, he completed his post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Jeffery F. Miller in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at UCLA working on Listeria monocytogenes as a model to study host immunity against Leishmaniasis and melanoma.

Watch the ad: