Trump, Allies Spread Unfounded Claims About Biden’s Cancer Diagnosis

Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino.

Former President Joe Biden’s office announced on May 18 that helium had been diagnosed with an assertive signifier of prostate crab 2 days earlier, pursuing the find of a prostate nodule. President Donald Trump and others person suggested, without evidence, that Biden’s diagnosis had been known overmuch earlier and hidden from the public. 

We tin lone study what Biden’s bureau has said. However, the timing of the diagnosis is plausible, since the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has recommended against regular prostate crab screenings for men implicit property 70.  

Trump wished Biden good successful a May 18 Truth Social post, saying, “Melania and I are saddened to perceive astir Joe Biden’s recent aesculapian diagnosis. We widen our warmest and champion wishes to Jill and the family, and we privation Joe a accelerated and palmy recovery.”

By the adjacent day, however, Trump’s absorption had shifted. “I’m amazed that it wasn’t — the nationalist wasn’t notified a agelong clip ago,” Trump told reporters, suggesting that the information had been concealed from the nationalist during Biden’s presidency.

But determination is nary grounds that Biden was alert of the crab earlier the May 16 diagnosis. A May 20 statement from a Biden spokesperson said his past known PSA, oregon prostate-specific antigen, trial “was successful 2014. Prior to [May 16], President Biden had ne'er been diagnosed with prostate cancer.”

The PSA trial measures the magnitude of a circumstantial macromolecule produced by cancerous and noncancerous insubstantial successful the prostate, a tiny gland beneath the bladder successful males.

Experts successful prostate crab told america it is apt that Biden’s crab began increasing years ago. But astatine property 82, helium had not been tested since his aboriginal 70s. The diagnosis was made aft Biden experienced urinary symptoms, the New York Times reported.

“It is astir definite that President Biden had prostate crab for months if not galore years anterior to his diagnosis,” Dr. Daniel Spratt, main of radiation oncology astatine University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center and Case Western Reserve University, told us. “This does not mean helium oregon his physicians were alert of his diagnosis.”

Biden’s cancer is Stage 4, meaning the illness has spread, successful his lawsuit to bone, with a Gleason people of 9, which refers to a much assertive cancer.

Trump told reporters, “To get to Stage 9, that’s a agelong time,” confusing the crab signifier with the Gleason score. “You person to say, wherefore did it instrumentality truthful long?” Trump said, adding later, “somebody is not telling the facts. It’s a big, it’s a large problem.”

The president’s lad Donald Trump Jr., successful a station connected X, wrote, “What I privation to cognize is however did Dr. Jill Biden miss signifier 5 metastatic crab oregon is this yet different coverup???” Trump Jr. shared a station that claimed it was “highly likely” Biden’s diagnosis was known passim his presidency.

Former First Lady Jill Biden’s doctorate is successful education, not medicine, and Joe Biden’s crab is Stage 4, not 5.

Leo Terrell, an authoritative successful Trump’s Department of Justice, reposted a baseless assertion connected X that Jill Biden knew astir her husband’s wellness problems but inactive wanted him to question a 2nd term. “Elder Abuse! Criminal Charges??” Terrell wrote.

The timing of Biden’s crab diagnosis besides coincides with the merchandise of a publication by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” which reports that Biden’s interior ellipse hid his deteriorating intelligence and carnal health.

But, arsenic we said, determination is nary grounds that Biden, his household oregon his doctors were alert of his prostate crab earlier the diagnosis connected May 16.

Recommendations connected Testing

The latest guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force advise against PSA screening for prostate crab successful men who are 70 and older. The group’s 2018 recommendations, which are successful the process of being updated, were based connected finding with “moderate certainty” that the imaginable benefits “do not outweigh the expected harms.” The USPSTF is an autarkic sheet of aesculapian experts that issues recommendations connected preventive screenings and medications.

For men 55 to 69 years of age, the task unit said the determination to get a PSA trial “should beryllium an idiosyncratic one,” and recommended that men sermon the pros and cons of investigating with a clinician.

“Screening offers a tiny imaginable payment of reducing the accidental of decease from prostate crab successful immoderate men,” the USPSTF recommendation for the younger group says. “However, galore men volition acquisition imaginable harms of screening, including false-positive results that necessitate further investigating and imaginable prostate biopsy; overdiagnosis and overtreatment; and attraction complications, specified arsenic incontinence and erectile dysfunction.”

Guidelines from different groups are broadly similar, often recommending that men lone trial aft consulting with a wellness attraction provider, although some do not provide an property cut-off aft which investigating is advised against.

High PSA levels “may bespeak the beingness of prostate cancer. However, galore different conditions, specified arsenic an enlarged oregon inflamed prostate, besides tin increase PSA levels. Therefore, determining what a high PSA score means tin beryllium complicated,” according to the Mayo Clinic.

Men with prostate crab whitethorn besides person mean PSA levels. “Some types of prostate crab don’t origin elevated PSA levels. You whitethorn person prostate crab adjacent if a PSA trial says your levels are normal,” the Cleveland Clinic explains.

Reconsidering Testing Guidelines

“Most prostate cancers are asymptomatic for a precise agelong time,” Dr. Isaac Kim, main of urology astatine Yale School of Medicine, told us. “When patients make precise ample illness locally oregon extensively disseminated, symptoms develop. In general, it is considered that prostate crab volition go symptomatic erstwhile the illness is precise very advanced.

“It appears that President Biden became symptomatic recently,” helium added, which would explicate wherefore the crab was diagnosed truthful late.

Doctors mightiness person detected Biden’s crab earlier if helium had been tested, Kim said, “but it is precise complicated. In galore circles among doctors, prostate crab screening is discouraged. This is existent particularly for men successful their 70’s” and older, helium said.

Some person argued that the modular guidelines should not ever use to a president. At the aforesaid time, deviating from them could mean subjecting a president to unnecessary risks oregon procedures.

Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a bosom oncologist and vice provost for planetary initiatives astatine the University of Pennsylvania, told the New York Times that the mode a president’s wellness is monitored, peculiarly 1 of Biden’s age, should beryllium reassessed. “We person to person assurance that their wellness information is not intervening,” helium said.

In a May 19 interview connected MSNBC, Emanuel, who was connected a COVID-19 advisory board for the Biden administration, said that Biden apt had crab “at the commencement of his presidency successful 2021.” This was interpreted by immoderate arsenic an admittance that a crab diagnosis was hidden from the public. Emanuel, however, later told the Washington Post that helium was lone saying that the crab was contiguous during Biden’s presidency.

“I didn’t accidental that determination was a conspiracy,” helium said, adding that helium “should have” clarified that helium wasn’t saying Biden knew helium had cancer.  “I was precise wide that helium did person cancer, that’s a fact. That helium knew oregon didn’t know, I don’t cognize and they don’t know.”

Dr. Jeffrey Tosoian, who specializes successful aboriginal diagnosis and absorption of urologic cancers astatine Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told america successful an email that PSA investigating became wide utilized for prostate crab screening successful the 1990s. That resulted successful “a ample simplification successful the fig of deaths caused by prostate crab successful the U.S. But PSA investigating besides led to a fig of unnecessary prostate biopsies” and “detection of non-aggressive prostate cancers.”

The USPSTF past decided to urge against PSA testing. “Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, the simplification successful PSA investigating has been associated with an summation successful diagnoses of metastatic prostate crab successful the U.S. … To many, the USPSTF determination to urge against PSA screening was an illustration of throwing the babe (i.e. reducing decease from prostate cancer) retired with the bathwater (i.e. hazard of antagonistic outcomes from PSA testing),” Tosoian said.

“In the past decade-plus, respective advances person improved the hazard vs. payment equilibrium of PSA screening.” Tosoian said. “Based connected these important improvements, galore of america that attraction for patients with prostate crab are hopeful that PSA screening volition beryllium amended supported by forthcoming argumentation changes.”

Spratt, of Case Western Reserve, noted that “older men successful studies consistently are much apt to harbor much assertive prostate cancer. Thus, PSA screening should proceed past 70 years old, but what doctors bash with that accusation indispensable beryllium individualized to each diligent to debar implicit diagnosis and overtreatment.

“Fortunately, President Biden has galore effectual therapies to dainty his prostate cancer, including representation guided radiotherapy and assorted forms of therapy that tin inhibit oregon artifact testosterone,” Spratt said. The hormone testosterone propels the growth of prostate crab cells.

Gerald Denis, a probe prof astatine the Shipley Prostate Cancer Research Center astatine Boston University’s aesculapian school, said that prostate crab that has dispersed to the bony is “generally considered to beryllium precocious and incurable.” Survival aft prostate crab metastasis to bony is “only astir 30 percent aft 5 years,” Denis told BU Today.

“Generally speaking, determination are galore attraction options disposable to fortify bones and dilatory tumor maturation and spread, adjacent if the bones are involved. In short, helium tin inactive beryllium treated, and the advancement of the crab slowed, adjacent if it is regarded arsenic incurable,” Denis besides said.

---

Editor’s note: FactCheck.org does not judge advertising. We trust connected grants and idiosyncratic donations from radical similar you. Please see a donation. Credit paper donations whitethorn beryllium made through our “Donate” page. If you similar to springiness by check, nonstop to: FactCheck.org, Annenberg Public Policy Center, P.O. Box 58100, Philadelphia, PA 19102. 

The station Trump, Allies Spread Unfounded Claims About Biden’s Cancer Diagnosis appeared archetypal connected FactCheck.org.