LAS VEGAS — Ahead of a crucial Democratic debate on Wednesday night, Bernie Sanders is facing new pressure to release his full medical records, more than four months after he had a heart attack while campaigning and vowed he would provide “comprehensive” records on his health.
When asked during a CNN town hall on Tuesday night if he would release more medical records, Mr. Sanders, 78, responded, “I don’t think we will, no.” He said that what he had already disclosed about his health was in line with what other candidates had done.
A campaign spokeswoman, facing questions on CNN on Wednesday morning about whether Mr. Sanders would release his medical records, claimed without evidence that former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had “suffered heart attacks in the past.” In the CNN interview, Briahna Joy Gray, the national press secretary for the Sanders campaign, likened the calls for Mr. Sanders to disclose more information on his health to a smear campaign.
In response, Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey, accused Mr. Sanders’s campaign of “spreading an absolute lie that Mike had heart attacks,” calling Ms. Gray’s remarks “completely false.”
Mr. Sanders’s health has been under scrutiny since early October, when he experienced chest pains during a campaign event in Las Vegas and had two stents inserted into an artery. His campaign did not reveal that he had suffered a heart attack until three days later, after he was released from the hospital.
In December, Mr. Sanders’s campaign released three letters from doctors declaring him healthy. One of the letters, dated Dec. 28 and signed by Dr. Brian P. Monahan, the attending physician of Congress, characterized Mr. Sanders as “in good health currently.”
Mr. Sanders had said in October as he was recovering from his heart attack that he would release his medical records by the end of the year, saying that they would be “comprehensive.” Letters from doctors are not the same as full medical records.
His campaign has tried to brush off criticism about Mr. Sanders’s decision not to release his full medical records by comparing what he has released to what other candidates have done.
Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Ind., also put pressure on Mr. Sanders to disclose more about his health, suggesting on Wednesday that he was not being forthcoming and urging all candidates to “do better.”
“I think we should be transparent, especially living in the Trump era,” Mr. Buttigieg said, in an interview with MSNBC. “We’ve got to do better. I would look to the Obama standard of releasing not just a letter from a doctor, but actual results from a physical. That’s what we’re planning to do, and I think every candidate should hold themselves to that same standard.”
Ms. Gray, in the CNN interview on Wednesday, said the calls for Mr. Sanders to put out more information on his health were reminiscent of “skepticism campaigns that have been run against a lot of different candidates in the past questioning where they’re from — aspects of their lineage.”
She then said, without evidence, that one of Mr. Sanders’s primary opponents, Michael R. Bloomberg, had “suffered heart attacks in the past.” Mr. Bloomberg had a stent inserted in 2000 to clear an artery, according to a letter from his doctor released in December. That letter also said Mr. Bloomberg had been diagnosed in 2018 with atrial fibrillation.
Shortly after making her comments, Ms. Gray walked them back. “I misspoke when I said Bloomberg had a heart attack,” she wrote on Twitter.
In his statement, Mr. Sheekey said Mr. Bloomberg had had two coronary stents placed in 2000, after a positive stress test at his doctor’s office.
“He quickly told the F.A.A., consistent with the rules for any pilot, and this information has been public for years,” he said.