Joe Biden cancer smacks of cover-up

Unquestionably sad though it is, Joe Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis adds another dimension to speculation that has long surrounded his health and his determination until July 2024 – four months out from the US election – to run against Donald Trump. The cancer diagnosis is recent and presumably unconnected with the age-related cognitive decline that was so devastatingly apparent in his June 27, 2024, election debate performance that led to his withdrawal from the race and replacement by Kamala Harris. But it does raise serious questions about the medical care Mr Biden, the leader of the free world at the time, was getting and the motivations of those – including large sections of the US media – who were insisting he was good for another term in the White House. Had he run and won, that would have taken him through to 2029, when he would be 86.

It also raises questions about whether, in insisting that Mr Biden was good for another four years when he clearly wasn’t, American voters were denied a better presidential choice, with a better candidate than Ms Harris, who potentially could have beaten Mr Trump. Astonishingly, since Mr Biden’s prostate diagnosis it has emerged that despite his age and, as president, being under constant medical supervision, he had not had a prostate-specific antigen blood test since 2014. The test is normal and regular for men as they get older. Had he had such a test, US oncologists say, it is conceivable his prostate cancer could have been found and treated much earlier. “He’s had this for many years, maybe even a decade, growing there and spreading,” oncologist Ezekiel Emanuel said. But in February 2024, 10 months out from the election, those insisting Mr Biden was in “showroom condition” and good to go were given a boost when his doctor certified that the then 81-year-old was “fit for duty”. That was despite deepening concern about Mr Biden’s cognitive decline.

The cover-up of Mr Biden’s mental and general health decline rightly has been described as one of the great scandals of modern US politics. Those responsible for it denied the Democratic Party a chance to select a candidate who might have done better against Mr Trump. They failed to allow the American people a better presidential choice.

None of this should detract from the sympathy that Mr Biden deserves as he embarks on a tough cancer battle, but it demands answers about the motives of those who cynically conspired to make him run when he clearly was not fit to do so.