Joe Biden hadn’t received a commonly used blood test to check for prostate cancer for more than a decade before his recent diagnosis, the former president’s office said Tuesday amid questions about his health while in the White House.
Biden last received a prostate-specific antigen test to screen for prostate cancer in 2014, according to a brief statement.
“Prior to Friday, President Biden had never been diagnosed with prostate cancer,” it said.
The statement came as President Donald Trump and his allies have challenged the timing of the diagnosis, which came as Biden faced questions about his health with the release of a book asserting that aides worked to hide his physical and mental decline while in office.
The announcement that the former president has an aggressive form of prostate cancer, with metastasis to the bone, has shaken Washington as many Democrats grapple with reports of his declining health during his final two years in the White House — and the implications for the 2024 campaign.
Even some allies have questioned how Biden’s doctors failed to spot such a serious condition, even as his annual physicals attracted close scrutiny as president.
Trump seized on the confusion Monday, telling reporters Biden’s cancer should have been flagged earlier and then attacking the former president’s mental acuity.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that men over the age of 70 refrain from routine screening for prostate cancer. The former president was in his early 70s in 2014, in the middle of serving a second term as President Barack Obama’s vice president.
