Although I haven't seen a lot of data on it, it's often mentioned that polls and focus groups consistently register some real concern among the electorate over McCain's age. Here's the result on the question from new ABC News poll (h/t Stoller) that shows that concern growing (9/7 result in parentheses.)

If elected, McCain would take office at age 72. If you honestly assessed yourself, is that something with which you're entirely comfortable, somewhat comfortable, somewhat uncomfortable or entirely uncomfortable?

Comfortable 52 (56)
Uncomfortable 48 (42)

Less talked about is McCain's health, but even that seems to be getting more play, especially as it becomes more and more clear to everyone just how monumentally unqualified Sarah Palin is to be president if anything were to happen to McCain in office. As I wrote last week, while the media may be loathe to touch the topic, John McCain single-handedly put it on the table when he picked Palin.

So, kudos to Brave New Films for getting the topic out there with their petition and video demanding that McCain release his full medical records to the public. You'll recall that all 3 cable nets have refused to air their ad on the subject, which in itself got coverage. Now, one of the principal doctors featured in that ad -- and one of the 2,700 doctors who signed onto an open letter calling on John McCain to issue a full, public disclosure of all of his medical records, Dr. Michael Fratkin, MD, wrote the following letter to continue to beat the drum about how important he feels a public airing of McCain's health is.

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

John McCain is a 72 year old man with recurrent melanoma, hyperlipidemia, degenerative joint disease, and recurrent difficulty with certain efforts at recall.

These are the limited facts the American people have had access to.

Over 1000 pages of medical records were shown to selected journalists for 3 hours with less than 48 hours of notice. The only medically trained journalist was Sanjey Gupta, MD from CNN. This is the extent to which the American people have been informed.

While I am certainly sensitive to the confidential nature of medical records, given the anxiety expressed by many of my patients regarding the risk of lost coverage or lost jobs in this current health economic climate, there are certain exceptions for disclosure regarding public safety.

As John McCain knows, a pilots records are comprehensively available for review by a certifying agency (the FAA) to insure the fitness of the pilot and the safety of passengers and the public at-large. In the election of the President of the United States of America, that certifying body is the American electorate.

A recurrence of metastatic malignant melanoma would essentially destroy John McCain's capacity as the Chief Executive and the American People have yet to receive a full accounting of the facts regarding his actuarial risk.

If he has had regional metastasis, his risk could be 30% or greater for distant metastasis to the brain, bone, and lung. As you all know, melanoma is one of the most insidious, pernicious, and aggressive malignancies our patients must deal with and that we attempt somewhat pathetically to control with interferon, interleukins, and dismally active and terribly toxic chemotherapeutic regimens.

In addition, we lack the simple data to sensibly evaluate his cardiovascular risk as we would any septuagenerian in our exam rooms.

John McCain should [MUST] be held accountable by the American people and its agents, the free press, to release without restriction the entirety of his medical records. Any hesitation to do so would clearly imply that there are significant medical concerns about his ability to fulfill the duties of the President.

Sincerely, Michael D. Fratkin, MD Internal Medicine Hospice and
Palliative Medicine

Eureka, California

And speaking of that 3 hours that media had to look at McCain's 1000+ pages of medical records, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta has recently described the experience to Sam Stein of HuffPo as "cloak and dagger." And while he is "reassured by the fact that it has been eight years now and there hasn't been a reemergence of that melanoma," Gupta is actually quite disturbed at the lack of transparency required regarding the health of the would-be leader of the free world.

And as Gupta argued, there is something sadly ironic with the fact that physicians and airline pilots are required to release medical records, but not the would-be president of the United States.

"[Former Senator] Paul Tsongas -- when he ran for office in 1992, he was a cancer survivor at that point, but said he had been cured," recalled Gupta. "We now know that had he been elected to a second term, he would have died in office. It was Tsongas who went to Clinton and said we should really have a requirement for the release of physical and mental medical records. Which, looking back now, is pretty remarkable."