Joe Biden’s recent cancer diagnosis has surprised many people in the United States, particularly since there are uncertainties surrounding the exact timing of when he became ill. This confusion escalated when former President Donald Trump criticized Biden’s administration for allegedly withholding information.
This event, however, is not the first instance of a president facing significant health challenges during their time in office. Some leaders in the past have even kept their health issues hidden from the public.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday, Trump questioned how Biden’s cancer wasn’t caught sooner.
“I’m surprised the public wasn’t notified a long time ago,” Trump said while addressing Biden’s prostate cancer.
“To get to stage nine, that’s a long time.
“When you take tests, as a male, that test is very standard.”
At 78 years old, Biden disclosed that he had recently completed a comprehensive medical check-up at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. During this check-up, a prostate examination is typically conducted as part of the routine procedures.
“This is dangerous for our country,” Trump warned, slamming Biden’s administration for “not telling the facts.”
Trump called the diagnosis “very very sad,” and blasted former White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who previously declared Biden to be in good health.
O’Connor had issued Biden a nearly clean bill of health in February 2024, saying he “identified no new concerns” during the former president’s last physical.
That exam did not include a prostate check though Biden had a colonoscopy in 2021.
Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previously defended skipping a cognitive test, telling reporters, “The president doesn’t need a cognitive test.”
“That is not my assessment, that is the assessment of the president’s doctor, that is also the assessment of his neurologist,” she said in 2022.
But Trump countered on Monday, “If it’s the same doctor that said there’s nothing wrong there, and that’s being proven to be a very sad situation.
“I think someone is going to have to speak to his doctor.”
SECRET ILLNESSES
Secret illnesses among presidents aren’t new as several past leaders went to extreme lengths to keep serious conditions under wraps.
According to a study conducted by the University of Arizona, five US presidents hid health issues and illnesses from the American public during their presidencies.
Chester Alan Arthur, the 21st US president, was diagnosed with Bright’s disease, a fatal kidney illness, less than a year after taking office.
Arthur received his diagnosis of Bright’s Disease in the 1880s.
But biographer Zachary Karabell stated a more accurate diagnosis for the former president would have been “glomerulonephritis,” which would have made it very difficult for Arthur’s body to expel any toxins.
“His blood and body were slowly being poisoned by his own digestion,” Karabell noted.
Arthur’s health rapidly declined and he died two years after leaving office in 1886.
Grover Cleveland, who became president in 1893, secretly had a tumor removed from the roof of his mouth aboard a friend’s yacht to avoid alarming the public or spooking markets.
A sample of the lesion was sent by presidential doctor Major Robert O’Reilly anonymously to the Army Medical Museum and Johns Hopkins for evaluation and the results came back for carcinoma.
Cleveland’s health concern coincided with a national financial depression and his surgery would come a few months before he was expected to address Congress.
The president worried reports of his surgery risked unsettling the markets and the public, so it was done in secret on his friend Commodore Elias Benedict’s yacht, the Oneida.
Cleveland’s surgery was performed in secret on July 1, 1893 to remove the tumor in his mouth and White House aides told the public he simply had a tooth removed.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was almost always confined to a wheelchair due to polio but used braces and aides to simulate walking and appear mobile during public events.
With the support of reporters, Roosevelt was able to keep his use of a wheelchair under wraps over the four terms of his presidency.
According to the University of Arizona, the media helped downplay the president’s disability and he was largely photographed above the waist, with very few photos existing of him using his wheelchair.
John F. Kennedy suffered from numerous illnesses throughout his life, reportedly showing symptoms of Addison’s disease, though the diagnosis was never officially confirmed.
As a child, Kennedy dealt with stomach problems, scarlet fever, and a mysterious illness during his private school years that left him completely debilitated.
While his private school illness was unknown, it has been described by scholars as a blood condition, either jaundice or hepatitis.
Kennedy’s health problems, including severe back pain, followed him into adulthood, with his father John Kennedy Sr. even pulling strings to get his health record overlooked so he could join the Navy.
When Kennedy ran for the presidency in 1960, he was asked about having Addison’s Disease, but his camp categorically denied the story, only conceding at the time that Kennedy had “some mild adrenal insufficiency.”
Woodrow Wilson, meanwhile, had multiple strokes before and during his presidency, including one so severe that his wife and doctor hid the truth even from him.
A stroke in 1919 left Wilson incapacitated for the rest of his term.
A cover-up followed, led by his second wife Edith and his physician, Dr Grayson.
“They thought that it would be best if Wilson was not informed of just how serious his condition truly was,” the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library noted in an exhibit on presidential illnesses.
The voters were unaware of Wilson’s hidden medical issues that could have drastically affected decision-making.
How could prostate cancer be missed?
By Health Correspondent, Sam Blanchard
It is likely that Joe Biden’s cancer started while he was still serving as president – as recently as January – but impossible to know how long he has had it.
Prostate cancer is widely regarded as the slowest growing form of cancer because it can take years for any sign of it to appear and many men never need treatment.
The former president’s office said his cancer is aggressive and has spread to his bones, further confusing the timeline.
PSA blood tests could indicate whether a patient is likely to have cancer but they become less accurate with age, and gold-standard tests involve taking biopsy tissue samples.
There is no guarantee that Mr Biden, 82, was tested during his presidency and, even if he was, the cancer is not certain to have been detected. It may have first formed a long time ago and only recently become aggressive, or started recently and grown very quickly.
Most cancers are found before they spread but a fast-growing one may be harder to catch in time.
Prostate cancers are well-known for not causing many symptoms in the early stages and the NHS says “there may be no signs for many years”.
The time it takes for a cancer to progress to stage four – known as metastatic, when it has spread to another body part – can vary from a number of months to many years.
Professor Suneil Jain, from Queen’s University Belfast, said: “Every prostate cancer is different and no-one from outside his direct team will have all the information to be specific about President Biden’s specific diagnosis or situation.
“In recent years there has been a lot of progress in the management of prostate cancer, with many new therapies becoming available.
“This has significantly extended the average life expectancy by a number of years.”
Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in males and one in eight men develop it at some stage in their life.
