Former President Joe Biden‘s last physical in 2024 showed that there were “no new concerns,” but his recent “aggressive” prostate cancer diagnosis has raised questions about whether White House doctors may have missed a key test.
The physical from last year, conducted by former White House physician Kevin O’Connor, makes no mention of whether or not Biden received a prostate-specific antigen blood test that is commonly used to help diagnose prostate cancer.
According to the former president’s office, Biden’s prostate cancer is “characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,” an advanced form of the disease.
During Biden’s 2023 and 2021 physicals, there was no mention of his PSA levels. Biden did not get a physical in 2022, the same year he launched his “Cancer Moonshot” initiative.
Neither Biden’s spokesperson nor O’Connor responded to the Washington Examiner‘s requests on whether he received a PSA test.
BIDEN DIAGNOSED WITH ‘AGGRESSIVE FORM’ OF PROSTATE CANCER THAT HAS SPREAD TO HIS BONES
Officials at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Biden conducted his physical, declined to comment, citing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, the Privacy Act of 1974, and Department of Defense regulations.
However, a former White House aide told the Washington Examiner that the “lack of disclosure would not surprise me.”
“It was like pulling teeth to get them to be transparent about anything … like the small stuff, that I always wondered what would happen if there was big stuff,” the aide added.
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), who served as White House physician under Trump and former President Barack Obama, told the Washington Examiner that it’s “completely unbelievable” that Biden’s cancer diagnosis went unnoticed during his term in office.
“Just the nature of the disease, he’s had prostate cancer for years now. If it’s to that point, and it wasn’t picked up by his physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, I mean, it’s complete malpractice in my mind, to be honest with you,” he said in an interview. “Either he did the exam and he didn’t report it, and then that makes you wonder, why did he not report it? Was it positive? Did they know he had prostate cancer? Or he didn’t do the exam. He didn’t do the PSA or Digital Rectal Exam, or anything like that, and there’s no excuse for not doing that. He’s the President of the United States.”
Health guidance for the general public from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends against PSA-based screening for men age 70 and older due to false positives, as well as diagnosis of problems that wouldn’t have caused death.
However, as president, Biden should have had access to the “pinnacle” of treatment, Jackson said.
“If you pick it up early, it’s curable, right? And just to have the President of the United States, who’s supposed to have access to world-class health care, whose White House medical unit is supposed to be the pinnacle of concierge medicine, executive medicine, and to not pick up on something like this,” Jackson continued. “I’m quite honestly shocked, and it’s just, it’s not good.”
CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson’s new book, Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, is among the recent reports on how far Biden’s allies went to prevent the public from seeing his mental decline.
Some skeptics, including President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, have implied there’s more to Biden’s sudden cancer announcement, and Biden’s White House should have been more transparent about his health.
In 2024, when Biden was seeking a second term, his inner circle included former first lady Jill Biden, senior White House advisers Mike Donilon and Annie Tomasini, the first lady’s top aide Anthony Bernal, and Biden’s 2024 campaign chairwoman Jenn O’Malley Dillon.
“I would not put it past them,” a former Biden White House aide said of a possible health cover-up. “I don’t think it’s a Mike Donilon call or something like that. It’s like a Jill, Anthony, Annie, kind of thing.”
Although the annual presidential physical is not legally required by law, presidents generally follow tradition and receive a physical at Walter Reed, conducted by a White House physician. A detailed summary is usually provided to reporters in the days following the physical.
Biden’s 2024 routine check-up included tests on his eyes, teeth, feet, spine, heart, nervous system, physical therapy, sleep medicine, skin, and radiology. White House doctors can withhold some of the tests that are run due to medical confidentiality.
Notably, the physical did not include a cognitive test despite rising concern about Biden’s mental acuity.
In contrast, Trump’s most recent physical last month showed he received the PSA test with a score of 0.10 ng/mL. A score of less than 4.0 ng/mL is within the normal range. Previous physicals from his first term also showed him receiving a PSA test.
However, Trump did not appear to be concerned about the quality of care he received from White House physicians when reporters questioned White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
“Not as far as President Trump is concerned,” Leavitt said during a Monday morning press briefing. “The White House physician we have here is phenomenal. And the team of physicians who take care of the president, particularly at Walter Reed Medical Center, is great. The president had his physical recently, as you know. He had perfect results. He’s in very good shape.”
Trump cast doubt on Biden’s timeline while speaking with reporters at the White House on Monday.
“If you take a look, it’s the same doctor who said that Joe was cognitively fine. There was nothing wrong with him,” the president said of O’Connor following a ceremony honoring fallen law enforcement officers.
“Look, it’s a very, very sad situation. I feel very badly about it, and I think people should try to find out what happened,” he concluded. “Maybe it was the same doctor, and somebody is not telling the facts. That’s a big problem.”
Dr. Carole Lieberman, a medical doctor and psychiatrist, told the Washington Examiner that not including a PSA test during a routine physical is unusual.
“Certainly for men over 50, an annual exam should always include a PSA test,” Lieberman said. “They normally do draw blood at an annual exam, and they send it for all kinds of tests. So it’s nothing to include a PSA. And for men over 50 who are more, you know, at risk of prostate cancer, that would be automatic, or it should be automatic.”
Other medical experts have expressed their shock and confusion at the severity of Biden’s cancer.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist who served on the former president’s COVID-19 advisory board, told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that he was surprised by how the diagnosis was missed.
“He’s had this for many years, maybe even a decade, growing there and spreading,” Emanuel said. “And it is a little surprising to many of us oncologists that he wasn’t diagnosed earlier.”
He also expressed confusion about Biden allegedly not having a PSA test done.
“President Obama had this test,” Emanuel said. “President Bush had this test. It is a little surprising that the doctor didn’t take it. And if he took it and didn’t report it, and it was elevated, that is another case of doctors not being straightforward with us. And if that is true, that would be very troubling.”
BIDEN DIAGNOSED WITH AGGRESSIVE FORM OF PROSTATE CANCER: WHAT TO KNOW
Lieberman agreed with Emanuel’s assessment but also pondered over a possible cover-up of Biden’s illness.
“The other thing is that it [the PSA test results) was high and they were hiding it from us,” she said. “It could be an example of his wife, you know … butting her nose in.”
