Bill Clinton gets two stents in heart artery

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WASHINGTON — Former president Bill Clinton had two stents placed in a clogged heart artery Thursday after he complained of chest discomfort, his cardiologist said.


Clinton, 63, "is in good spirits, and will continue to focus on the work of his foundation and Haiti's relief and long-term recovery efforts," Douglas Band, counselor to the former president, said in a statement. Clinton recently returned from a trip to Haiti.



The nation's 42nd president underwent a quadruple heart bypass operation in 2004.



Allan Schwartz, Clinton's cardiologist, said the procedure went smoothly and Clinton may be released from the hospital today.



Clinton showed no evidence of having had a heart attack, Schwartz said at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. He said Clinton is in "excellent health" and is ready to resume "his very active lifestyle."



Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton left for New York to be with her husband, aides told the Associated Press. They said she plans to go ahead with a scheduled trip this weekend to Qatar and Saudi Arabia. She left for New York shortly after a White House meeting with President Obama. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters concerning the former president's health.



Cardiologists said Clinton's latest health problems should come as no surprise.



"It's very common five to seven years after bypass surgery for a vein graft" to clog, just as native arteries do, said Steven Nissen, chief of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic. The leg veins commonly used in bypass surgery are structurally different and tend to fail more quickly, Nissen said.



Doctors often fix the problem by inserting stents, springlike devices that prop the artery open. Once a stent is put in place, the chest pain goes away.



Usually, patients are released from the hospital within 24 to 48 hours and can resume normal activities within a few days.



The fix, Nissen said, is likely to be temporary. "Once you have coronary artery disease, it tends to recur," he said.



After his bypass surgery, Clinton developed complications that required a surgery on one lung several months later because of a buildup of fluid and scar tissue. He did not have a heart attack during either of those episodes.



Obama called Clinton to wish him a speedy recovery, the White House said.



Former president George W. Bush, who is working with his predecessor on the Haiti relief fundraising drive, spoke with Chelsea Clinton on Thursday "and was glad to hear that her father is doing well," Bush spokesman David Sherzer said.



Former Clinton spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers joked that it was nice of Clinton to "inject a change of topic" into the news after all the coverage of the East Coast snowstorms. "No one I've talked to around him is very alarmed. The guy works so hard, and a lot of people ... are going to have to look at his schedule and dial it back around the edges."

Beyonce, Madonna Join Haiti Telethon

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AP) Beyonce and Madonna have been added as performers to Friday's multi-network "Hope for Haiti Now" telethon, and Denzel Washington, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and former President Bill Clinton are among the participants.

A statement released Thursday said Beyonce would perform from London, and Madonna from New York City. The list of musical performers already includes such heavyweights as Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake and Keith Urban.

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"It's a big world out there, and we all have a lot of responsibility to look out for people who can't look out for themselves," telethon organizer George Clooney said in an MTV interview that aired Thursday night. "So what we can do is first and foremost, raise money. Period. That's it ...

"If I thought we could all pick up shovels and go in there and help without being in the way, I think a lot of people would do that."

An estimated 200,000 people were killed after a powerful earthquake struck Haiti last week, devastating the nation.

The two-hour telethon will be shown on all the major networks and a host of other channels. It will be broadcast from New York, London, Los Angeles and Haiti.

People can begin donating even before the start of the 8 p.m. EST concert via phone and text. Viewers can also download musical performances from the show via iTunes for 99 cents. Those profits will also be donated to Haiti relief.

Also Thursday, DiCaprio announced he was donating $1 million to the Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund, the relief effort led by former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and one of the organizations benefiting from the telethon.