Hillary Clinton diagnosed with pneumonia before incident at 9/11 event, campaign says

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday, according to her campaign.

In a statement released Sunday after Mrs. Clinton collapsed at a Sept. 11 memorial event in New York, Dr. Lisa Bardack said she made the diagnosis while examining the candidate’s recent coughing incidents.

The former first lady “was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule,” Dr. Bardack said in a statement released by the campaign Sunday afternoon.

Dr. Bardack repeated the campaign’s earlier explanation for the collapse — that Mrs. Clinton “became overheated and dehydrated” with the temperature in the low-80s.

Mrs. Clinton is 69.

In a statement earlier this summer, Dr. Bardack said Mrs. Clinton was “healthy,” apart from a thyroid condition and pollen allergies.

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SEE ALSO: Hillary Clinton leaves 9/11 event early feeling unwell, ‘feeling better’ at daughter’s NY apartment

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Mrs. Clinton’s most recent coughing fit happened at a Labor Day rally, prompting a week of whispers about Mrs. Clinton’s health, which some of her supporters angrily dismissed as sexism.

She also suffered a concussion in 2012 and attributed some of her memory lapses on Benghazi and email-related matters to that.

In the pre-antibiotic era, pneumonia was once among the leading causes of death, and it can still often be fatal when it strikes children, the elderly or people in otherwise poor health. In her statement Sunday, Dr. Bardack said Mrs. Clinton “is now re-hydrated and recovering nicely.”

Dan Pfeiffer, a former communications director with the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign, downplayed the diagnosis, taking to Twitter to say “every candidate I have ever worked for has gotten sick on the trail and worked through it because you can’t take days off in a close race.”

Democratic National Committee interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile said Sunday night that she was “glad to learn that Secretary Clinton is already feeling better and I wish her a speedy recovery.”

“I look forward to seeing her back out on the campaign trail and continuing on the path to victory,” she said.

However a senior Clinton aide told The Wall Street Journal that Mrs. Clinton was reconsidering a scheduled airplane trip to California on Monday to appear on “The Ellen Degeneres Show.”