WASHINGTON: Joe Biden’s diagnosis with an aggressive form of prostate cancer has spurred some prominent conservatives to accuse the former president of a cover-up, but oncologists told AFP that screening limitations could very well have left his condition undetected until now.
The 82-year-old received the diagnosis last week after he experienced urinary issues and a prostate nodule was found, his office said Sunday.
While President Donald Trump said he was “saddened” to learn of his rival’s condition, a chorus of Republicans led by Vice President JD Vance and Donald Trump Jr said or shared conspiratorial posts to the effect that Biden and his White House medical team had long concealed his illness for political purposes.
Questions over Biden’s health dogged him throughout the waning months of his presidency and his short-lived reelection campaign. And they have been renewed in recent weeks ahead of the expected release of a book detailing what it calls his declining physical condition.
Prostate cancer, the most common among men, is typically diagnosed much sooner than other kinds of cancer. It can be caught in its early stages using blood tests that measure for a protein called PSA.
Medical experts interviewed by AFP said the late identification of an advanced cancer would not be unheard of, even for a former president receiving top-of-the-line medical care.
“We can’t rule out the possibility that it was an aggressive form that developed quickly,” said Natacha Naoun, an oncologist with France’s Gustave-Roussy Institute.
Annual PSA screening after the age of 70 is not universally recommended.
The US Preventive Services Task Force advises against it, reasoning that the risk of false positives and the harms from biopsies and treatment outweigh the benefits.
“It could be they decided to stop checking PSA annually, and then he had urinary symptoms,” said Russell Pachynski, an oncologist with Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, who told AFP that prostate cancer patients do not always experience telltale pains or signs.
It is also possible that Biden was undergoing routine screenings, but that those checks failed to turn up indications of cancer, Pachynski said.
“Maybe it was just unlucky that his particular cancer didn’t express a lot of PSA and he still had a normal PSA. In that setting, you would not go checking the prostate or do a biopsy, etcetera, unless it was driven by symptoms.”
Otis Brawley, an oncologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, said studies have shown both PSA testing and rectal exams are imperfect.
“It is not unusual for a man to be diagnosed with metastatic prostate disease despite normal annual screening,” he told AFP. “This is part of the limitations of prostate screening.”
How Biden cancer diagnosis could have gone undetected
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How Biden cancer diagnosis could have gone undetected
- Republicans shared conspiratorial posts to the effect that Biden and his White House medical team had long concealed his illness for political purposes
Venezuela advances amnesty bill that could lead to mass release of political prisoners
- Such an amnesty is a central demand of the country’s opposition and human rights organizations with backing from the United States
CARACAS: Venezuela’s legislature on Thursday advanced an amnesty bill proposed by acting President Delcy Rodríguez that could lead to the release of hundreds of opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons.
Such an amnesty is a central demand of the country’s opposition and human rights organizations with backing from the United States. But the contents of the bill have not been released publicly, and rights groups have so far reacted with cautious optimism — and with demands for more information.
The bill, introduced just weeks after the US military captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, still requires a second debate that has yet to be scheduled. Once approved, it must be signed by Rodríguez before it can go into effect.
In announcing the bill late last month, Rodríguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled National Assembly would take up the legislation with urgency.
“May this law serve to heal the wounds left by the political confrontation fueled by violence and extremism,” she said in a pre-taped televised event. “May it serve to redirect justice in our country, and may it serve to redirect coexistence among Venezuelans.”
Rights groups, fearing some political detainees will be excluded, want more details about the requirements for amnesty before any final vote.
The Venezuelan Program for Education-Action in Human Rights, or PROVEA, issued a statement emphasizing that the bill must be made public urgently due to its potential impact on victims’ rights and broader Venezuelan society.
Based on what is known so far about the legislation, the amnesty would cover a broad timeline, spanning the administration of the late Hugo Chávez from 1999 to 2013 and that of his political heir, Maduro, until this year. It would exclude people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, and serious human rights violations, reports indicate.
