An expert in infectious diseases has claimed that Donald Trump’s alleged erratic and bizarre behavior, which has led several mental health professionals to express fears that he could be mentally ill, could be part of the symptoms of syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease (STD).

The shocking suggestion that Trump could be exhibiting the symptoms of dementia due to syphilis was put forward by Steven Beutler, an expert in infectious diseases, in an article titled, “A Medical Theory For Trump’s Bizarre Behavior,” published by the New Republic.

According to Beutler, a major reason to fear that Trump could be suffering from syphilis is that we know he was exposed to a grave risk of syphilis infection in the 1980s. The assessment is based, according to Beutler, on Trump’s own admission on the Howard Stern show in 1997 that he lived a dangerous sexually promiscuous lifestyle in the 1980s.

Trump told Stern during the 1997 interview on the Howard Stern Show that his risky sexual behavior in the 1980s was his “personal Vietnam.”

“I’ve been so lucky in terms of that whole world,” Trump said, in reference to the risk of STDs he was exposed to due to his sexual promiscuity. “It is a dangerous world out there. It’s scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam-era. It is my personal Vietnam.”

The 1980s, according to Beutler, was a very dangerous time to be sexually promiscuous because it was a period when syphilis infection was rampant in the U.S. The fact that Trump has shown all the major symptoms of neurosyphilis, including irritability, delusional thinking, grandiosity, and patchy hair loss, provides a basis to fear that he could be in the late stages of neurological illness due to syphilis infection, according to the medical expert.

Trump is not the first world leader whose pattern of bizarre behavior has been attributed to a possible syphilis infection.

Experts have claimed in the past that Hitler’s erratic behavior, especially toward the end of his life, was uncannily similar to the pattern of psychiatric instability exhibited by individuals suffering from an advanced stage of syphilis in which neuropsychiatric symptoms are manifested dominantly.

According to Beutler, syphilis has earned the historical reputation of “The Great Impostor,” due to the fact that it mimics so many other illnesses and syndromes, especially non-infectious mental health illnesses.

The first stage of development of syphilis, according to the expert, is termed primary syphilis.

“Primary syphilis is the most widely recognized form of the disease. It is characterized by the development of an ulcer, usually genital, a few weeks to a few months after sexual contact with an infected person,” Beutler wrote.

“If the ulcer is not noticed, or not treated, it heals on its own, and the disease enters a dormant phase,” he added.

Secondary syphilis develops several weeks or months after the primary stage and it is characterized by a wide range of non-specific symptoms, such as fever, rash, sores, and swollen lymph glands.

If the second stage of development of the disease is left untreated, “the infection enters a prolonged latent phase, which can last decades. During this time, it is asymptomatic and it is not contagious,” according to Beutler.

In a few cases, a devastating tertiary stage of the illness develops that is best known for causing a form of illness called neurosyphilis.

Neurosyphilis is often misdiagnosed because it mimics non-infectious psychiatric illness. And according to Beutler, all of the symptoms of neurosyphilis, including “patchy hair loss,” have been observed in Trump.