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Doctors Clear Cheney on Health

Published: July 13, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors reported Saturday that Vice President Dick Cheney’s heartbeat was normal for a 67-year-old man who has a history of heart problems.

“All is fine,” Mr. Cheney’s press secretary, Megan Mitchell, said after the vice president’s annual checkup at George Washington University Hospital.

Mr. Cheney has had four heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery and two artery-clearing angioplasties. In addition to the physical exam, he had an electrocardiogram, a test that detects and records the electrical activity of the heart, Ms. Mitchell said.

At his annual checkup in June 2007, doctors found no new blockages in his heart, but said he needed a new battery for a special pacemaker in his chest. The vice president later had surgery to replace the implanted device.

In November, doctors administered an electrical shock to Mr. Cheney’s heart to restore it to a normal rhythm. The irregular heartbeat was determined to be atrial fibrillation, an abnormal rhythm involving the upper chambers of the heart.

At this most recent checkup, doctors found that Mr. Cheney had not experienced any recurrence of atrial fibrillation, and that the special pacemaker had neither detected nor treated any arrhythmia, a problem with the heartbeat’s speed or rhythm.

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