Nevada Representative Mark Amodei had an outpatient medical procedure and three surgeries in the last 10 months to treat a cancerous area in the esophagus and cancerous kidney tumors. Amodei did not disclose the cancer information when he knew about it in September 2020 or the surgery prior to the 2020 presidential election as Amodei did not wish the information to be utilized against him during his election campaign.
The representative said that had someone asked him regarding it back then, the truth about his medical condition would have come from him. About his recent hospital stays, Amodei stated that he checked in with his real name instead of an alias. At the same time, he said that there is no way he would have voluntarily disclosed the information in a US election cycle. Amodei would not like it to be a political campaign issue through the disclosure.
Amodei has represented Northern Nevada and Reno in the lower house of the US Congress since 2011. In one of Amodei’s previous re-election campaigns, his adversary criticized him as he missed votes that he said were mainly owed to his mother’s passing and his retinal surgery.
When asked whether constituents deserved to know the information regarding his cancer diagnosis and management before the US election, he said that it was no major surgery. There is evidence to back this up: Amodei returned to work just two days after the successful surgery.
Amodei also stated that he doubted that if he revealed the cancer information ahead of the election, then others would accuse him of utilizing it for his benefit. As for Amodei, using it thus would be viewed as an act of seeking the so-called sympathy vote. This means there would have been criticism against Amodei no matter what he did under the circumstances.
The congressperson first disclosed some pieces of his diagnosis-related information in a recent talk to the Nevada Independent. As for the Truckee Meadows Community College’s Fred Lokken, there are no standards regarding when or if one should reveal the procedures and voters could decide whether it matters.
Lokken said that different constituents have different value systems and that they would perhaps prefer knowing these pieces of information. According to Loyola Law School’s Jessica Levinson, it is an area where it is tricky to determine what is wrong and what is right. Lokken reckons that medical details are different because people would not wonder whether a congressman would vote against or for a tax law due to their diagnosis, while they might have the concern regarding financial conflicts.
In September 2020, tumors were found in the kidneys of Amodei. He went through a left kidney surgery and stayed for one night in a hospital in the State of Washington. In June 2021, the representative underwent surgery involving the least incision into the body for the right kidney tumor and stayed in a hospital for two nights.
Amodei revealed that both surgical procedures removed his kidney cancer in a way that did not necessitate a radiation treatment or chemotherapy. Nevertheless, he stated that some bleeding issues followed his second surgery and that another procedure treated the issues.
Further, Amodei revealed that a doctor in Reno discovered that his esophagus has a cancerous area. Amodei suffers from a condition known as Barrett’s esophagus, which occurs due to acid reflux changing the esophagus lining and can leave patients in danger of developing cancer. The representative stated that the area was found in its early stage and that an outpatient surgery removed it.
Amodei stated that while he would require frequent checkups to ensure that things are fine, he feels he has mostly returned to a normal state despite some tiredness. Therefore, Amodei feels that he is fortunate to have just this form of cancer. Amodei plans on deciding in October whether to run for Nevada’s Governor position or the 2022 re-election.
