OUNT PLEASANT, Iowa - Presidential hopeful Bill Bradley has suffered four additional bouts with an irregular heartbeat since he canceled a campaign event and went to the hospital in December, the former New Jersey senator said last night.
None of the four episodes required hospitalization, medical attention, or the cancellation of campaign events, Bradley said.
''It has absolutely no impact on the race or my capacity to have a schedule or my intensity of campaigning,'' said Bradley, who used to play professional basketball for the New York Knicks.
Bradley said he did not feel the need to tell anyone, but he admitted that four episodes in one month are an unusually large number for him. That brings the total number of irregular heart rhythms he has experienced to 11 since 1996, when the condition - known as atrial fibrillation - was first diagnosed.
''I didn't think we needed to disclose it,'' Bradley told reporters who are following his campaign. ''You don't want me to go around disclosing every time I flip out for an hour or two hours. If I have to see a doctor or if there has to be any medical attention given to it, you will hear about it immediately.''
Bradley spoke to reporters last night after ABC News reported that he had had at least one incident since Dec. 10.
Three of the last four episodes occurred while Bradley was campaigning for president, according to Anita Dunn, Bradley's communications director. The first occurred on either Dec. 27 or 28, at the end of a vacation, she said. The next occurred on Jan. 6, as Bradley was traveling from New Hampshire to Iowa; the third happened Jan. 9 during a rural bus tour of Iowa; the fourth took place Sunday at a Martin Luther King event at Drake University in Iowa.
Atrial fibrillation is a common heart condition that sometimes requires electric shocks to force the heart back into a regular rhythm.
When his campaign first revealed his heart condition, it also released a note from his doctor describing it as ''more of an inconvenience than a problem.'' The campaign also released results of a recent physical exam, which showed no other sign of disease and no structural damage to the heart.
The exam reported about a half-dozen incidents of atrial fibrillation since 1996, three of which were treated with a mild electric shock. Bradley was also prescribed the antiarrhythmia drug Procanbid to prevent or shorten the duration of the episodes.
Campaign officials, however, refused to provide his medical records from before 1996.
While in Iowa yesterday, Bradley traded barbs with Vice President Al Gore on who cares more about state's caucuses Monday, the nation's first presidential contest.
It began when Gore accused the former senator of being disrespectful to Iowa.
''My opponent ... has spent more money here than any Democratic candidate in the history of the United States of America,'' Gore told an enthusiastic crowd in the Iowa Western Community College gymnasium.
''But after all of that money ... he has evidently developed a new vision of the Iowa caucuses. He said, `Iowa rewards entrenched power,''' said Gore.
''I want to say that fighting to reduce the high cost of pharmaceuticals, fighting to save Medicare ... that's not entrenched power. That is fighting for people,'' Gore declared.
Gore was quoting from a news report of Bradley's comments Wednesday.
Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser said the former senator respects Iowans and their caucuses. And the Bradley campaign unearthed quotes they attributed to Gore during his 1988 campaign for president, in which he called the Iowa caucuses ''madness'' and a contest that ''distorts the process.''
For his part, Bradley kicked off a four-day bus tour through eastern Iowa by making a vigorous pitch for his health-care plan. He told an audience of senior citizens that his proposal was on par with the creation of Social Security by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Medicare by Lyndon B. Johnson.
Bradley was also determined to reassure his audience that his $650 billion, 10-year plan would not leave Medicare or Social Security at risk, as Gore has contended.
''Some people say you've got to choose - that you can either protect Medicare or provide health insurance for all Americans,'' Bradley said in a clear reference to Gore.''I say, `No, you can do both.'''
Bradley said most voters were unaware of the ''most underreported'' part of his proposal: tax deductions on health-care costs that Bradley said will amount to a $25 billion tax cut.
The Bradley campaign announced yesterday it will run two new advertisements here this weekend, one featuring Nebraska Senator Robert Kerrey, who announced yesterday that he will not seek reelection this year, and another with former Boston Celtics star Bill Russell. The campaign also announced the endorsement of Betty Friedan, the feminist author and cofounder of the National Organization for Women.
Susan Milligan of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
