WASHINGTON-Once again President Clinton has lost a quixotic struggle to conceal personal medical records that seem essentially normal.   His steadfast campaign to reveal only a sanitized summary of his medical data broke down when White House reporters asked publicly whether Clinton was hiding an STD.   Leading up to this, Bob Dole’s campaign, which had considered age and personal health to be its own shortcoming, had suddenly found itself on the offensive, repeatedly contrasting the detailed medical records it issued with the smattering from Clinton.   At a White House press briefing, Mike McCurry, the President’s press secretary, struggled to explain why records were being kept under wraps while nothing substantive was being concealed. It finally reached this stage: Q: Does he have a sexually transmitted disease? I mean, what is-   McCurry: Jesus! Good God, do you really want to ask that question?   Indeed, that was just the question the reporter found necessary to ask. The next day, the kind of detailed medical data the press had been requesting was finally released, and, not surprisingly, Clinton had no STD.   In fact, there was nothing embarrassing in the battery of reports from eight of Clinton’s physicians, the most detailed of which was from Dr. E. Connie Mariano, a Navy general internist who is director of the White House medical unit. Clinton’s LDLs and lipid ratio are a little high.   The exercise was almost a carbon copy of the one four years earlier when Clinton was first a candidate. His deputy campaign chairman, Betsey Wright, insisted for weeks, despite being given evidence to the contrary, that a two-paragraph affirmation of good health matched up against the kind of medical information issued by previous candidates.   Yet presidents and their opponents, plus their running mates, began in 1976 to issue reasonably detailed statements from their doctors. The practice sprang from the 1968 mid-campaign revelations that the Democratic vice-presidential candidate had undergone electroconvulsive shock therapy for depression.   Candidate Clinton in 1992 called it a privacy issue, but a spokeswoman promised that if Clinton became president his medical records would be open. Finally, in the face of Clinton’s refusal to go beyond layman’s platitudes, a front-page article in the New York Times in October 1992 reported how he was stonewalling on the precise state of his personal health. Within days, detailed reports from his Little Rock physicians were issued. Yet, as with this year’s reports, there was nothing significantly amiss about Clinton’s health in 1992.   This time, McCurry issued a four-paragraph statement after Clinton’s May 24 physical examination, adding some details at a press briefing.   Dole, sensitive to any suggestion that at age 73 he might be too old to be president, issued extensive medical information on his Second World War wounds, his 1991 prostate cancer, and on a 1980 false-positive report of an MI. He gave out detailed reports when he ran for vice-president in 1976 and for president in 1980.   But Clinton had to be prodded again, and the STD question was the last straw. “I think we’ve taken this additional step in light of the questions that some news organizations have posed-based, no doubt, on some of the prompting that has been raised by Sen. Dole’s operatives and others who have been attempting to raise questions,” said McCurry.   Clinton’s 1996 medical report listed gastroesophageal reflux among his complaints, treated with 20 mg of omeprazole (Prilosec, Astra Merck) b.i.d. and occasional antacids. His allergies to house dust, mold spores, cat dander, and weed and grass pollen are treated with weekly desensitization. He takes one to two tablets daily of loratadine (Claritin-D, Schering). Occasional hoarseness is attributed to reflux, allergies, and voice overuse, treated by voice rest.   A benign 5x5 mm epidermal inclusion cyst on the left side of his neck was excised this summer. A 3x3 mm red macule on the right side of the nasal tip, a precancerous actinic keratosis, was removed by liquid nitrogen. He does stretching exercises to prevent low-back pain (chronic pars spondylolysis at L5) that developed after a 1984 skiing accident, which also caused a strained knee ligament. He has hearing loss at 3 kHz to 8 kHz. He had successful sinus-window (Caldwell-Luc) surgery for sinusitis in 1979. As a child, he had measles, mumps, and chickenpox, and he had a tonsillectomy in 1952.   He has no history of hypertension, diabetes, TB, STDs, cancer, stroke, or heart disease. A PPD skin test was negative. A 1990 HIV test for life insurance was negative.   The President was born Aug. 19, 1946. He is 6' 2" and weighs 216 lbs. His pulse was 55 and regular, respiration was 18, and BP was 126/70 mm Hg. He exercises with free weights two to three times a week and runs three miles twice a week. He doesn’t smoke. He drinks at social events.   PSA was 0.7. Urinalysis: yellow, clear, and negative for blood, mucous, or WBC. Exercise treadmill: entered Stage VI Bruce protocol, 94% of predicted maximum heart rate, no ischemic changes, no symptoms, test stopped by physicians due to completion of greater than 90% maximum heart rate. ECG: sinus bradycardia with rate of 55, normal.   CBC, fasting glucose, and blood chemistries were normal. T4: 7.5; TSH: 0.93. Total cholesterol: 191 mg/dL; triglycerides: 72; HDL: 36; LDL: 141; lipid ratio: 5.3. Flexible sigmoidoscopy in 1994: negative. Hemoccult: negative. -Mark Bloom