Vice President Cheney (file photo)

Vice President Dick Cheney is back home and heading back to work after being briefly hospitalized for shortness of breath. His doctors say a drug reaction was to blame for the health scare.

The vice president has a long history of heart problems, so when he experienced a shortness of breath in the middle of the night he was taken to a hospital.

But this time the culprit was a medication he was taking for a sore foot. Doctors say the anti-inflammatory drug caused him to retain fluid and that resulted in the breathing difficulty.

They gave him a heart test which proved normal and placed him on a diuretic. Four-and-a-half hours after he was brought to George Washington University Hospital, he was sent home.

President Bush says he talked to Cheney a short time later. He says the vice president indicated he feels fine and planned to return to work at the White House later in the day.

It was just the latest health scare for the vice president, who has had four heart attacks, bypass surgery, and an operation in 2001 to implant a special pacemaker in his chest.

During a brief session with reporters, White House spokesman Scott McClellan brusquely dismissed speculation about the vice president's future in the Bush administration, saying the president absolutely would not consider replacing his second in command.