Former President Joe Biden and his team were forced to deny that he knew he had cancer while he was still in office following accusations that he hid it from President Donald Trump, medical experts, and several Republicans.
“Prior to Friday, President Biden had never been diagnosed with prostate cancer,” a Biden spokesperson said on Tuesday, per DailyMail.com, adding that Biden hasn’t had the blood test to check for prostate cancer since 2014.
The statement followed President Donald Trump’s assertions on Monday, in which he claimed that Joe Biden had been aware of his cancer diagnosis for an extended period. Trump and others have suggested that concealing this information was part of a broader cover-up by Biden’s team regarding his health decline while in office.
“I’m surprised that it wasn’t, you know, the public wasn’t notified a long time ago because to get to stage nine, that’s a long time,” Trump said.
Questions quickly arose about the timing of Biden’s diagnosis, given that, as president, he likely underwent regular monitoring for indicators of prostate cancer.
Presidents typically receive comprehensive annual physicals, which, for someone of Biden’s age, would almost certainly include a Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test. This test measures the level of PSA in the blood, and elevated levels can signal prostate cancer or other prostate-related conditions.
Biden’s physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor said in a statement after a check-up in February 2024: “The President feels well and this year’s physical identified no new concerns. He continues to be fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.”
But other medical experts aren’t buying that. In fact, they smell another cover-up — like the one involving Biden’s mental decline, which appeared obvious to anyone who was fair-minded.
What’s more, a former Fox News contributor now serving as a senior counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights suggested that former First Lady Jill Biden could potentially face criminal charges.
Leo Terrell of the DOJ went so far as to suggest that Jill Biden should – or at least could – be prosecuted.
Reposting a tweet from a conservative internet personality, Terrell wrote, “Elder Abuse! Criminal Charges??”
Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, according to a statement from his personal office on Sunday.
“Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” the statement noted.
It added, “While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, which allows for effective management.”
Biden and his family “are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” according to CNN.
Not long after the news broke, leading experts began posing questions about the diagnosis. Donald Trump Jr. posted a screengrab of a statement from physician Dr. Steven Quay, who called prostate cancer “the easiest cancer to diagnose when it first starts and to watch it progress to bone metastases.”
Quay noted that routine blood tests recommended for men over 50 indicate how rapidly cancer can grow.
“It is inconceivable that this was not being followed before he left the Presidency,” wrote Dr. Howie Forman, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging, public health management, and economics at Yale.
He pointed out that the prostate-specific antigen test would have indicated he had cancer “for some time before this diagnosis,” considering its aggressive nature.
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel also seemed to question the odd nature of Biden’s diagnosis announcement.
“This was found by physical examination by a prostate exam,” he said Sunday evening. “A lot of times, we find an elevation in prostate-specific antigen, PSA, and then we go after it.”