‘He’s Had This For Many Years’: Doctor Shocks Joe Scarborough With Biden Cancer Analysis
Morning Joe hosts were left stunned as a cancer doctor suggested Joe Biden’s advanced prostate cancer should have been caught earlier and floated the possibility that the former president either skipped the test or the White House failed to report the results.
Biden was diagnosed with what his office called an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer on Friday in an announcement that went public on Sunday and explained how he was looking at “management” options.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist who was selected by Biden as a medical expert for his COVID Advisory Board, appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Monday, where his explanation left the hosts quietly listening in shock as he explained his “surprise” that the diagnosis was missed before now.
The doctor explained that the late-stage nature of the diagnosis means that Biden has had the cancer for “many years.”
Host Joe Scarborough asked: “You would say that very few people have actually had it diagnosed at this late stage. That’s rare. Doesn’t it take some time for prostate cancer to develop to a point where it would spread to the bone?”
“Oh, he’s had this for many years, maybe even a decade, growing there and spreading. That’s right. It’s a little surprising. I looked back at the records and there’s no evidence that when he got his health status and the medical records were released, that he had a prostate specific antigen,” the doctor explained.
Continuing the doctor said: “Now, it is true that a lot of people recommend not doing a prostate-specific antigen after 70, but President Biden’s been in public life a very long time. He was vice president and had a lot of exams under 70. So it’s a little surprising that they didn’t do it. And maybe President Biden decided he didn’t want the test. Many men do decide they don’t want the PSA, but this is also aggressive.”
He added: “When we talk about aggressive part, what we mean is that Gleason score, that score is from two up to ten. And he’s a nine. And that means that the cancer doesn’t look normal, it looks very abnormal, which is probably why it’s in the bone. And as you point out, Joe, it’s been around for a very long time in President Biden – years.”
Shocked, Scarborough pressed: “Exactly how many?”
Emanuel replied: “We don’t know, obviously. And it is a little surprising to many of us oncologists that he wasn’t diagnosed earlier.”
The host pushed further, asking whether taking the test would be seen as “normal” and routine considering his public role.
The doctor replied, explaining that medical ethics required that the option and recommendation of a test would have been discussed with Biden but that the decision to have it would have ultimately rested with him.
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He added: “I don’t know what President Biden and his doctor discussed, but I think you are hinting at the other element, which is that President Obama had this test, President Bush had this test. It is a little surprising that the doctor didn’t take it. And if he took it and didn’t report it and it was elevated, that is another case of doctors not being straightforward with us. We’ve had several of them with President Trump, especially around his COVID diagnosis. And if that is true, that would be very troubling.”
Scarborough stopped the doctor to outright ask him to confirm that Biden had had the cancer for years was not “speculation.”
“If he has had prostate cancer that has spread to the bone then he most certainly had it when he was president of the United States?” the host asked.
The doctor was clear in his reply: “Oh yeah. He did not develop it in the last 100 to 200 days. He had it while he was president. He probably had it at the start of his presidency in 2021. Yes, I don’t think there’s any disagreement about that.”
Scarborough asked the doctor again about whether a prostate test would be “one of the first tests” he’d conduct on an older male president given the risk.
Emanuel said it would certainly be discussed but repeated his insistence that it would be Biden’s call on whether to take the test, adding again that former presidents all had.
Scarborough replied: “Yeah, but certainly especially if you’re not even talking about living another ten years we’re talking about the decision to run another four years. Certainly this would be a test that would need to be taken.”
Co-host Mika Brzezinski interjected to repeat Scarborough’s questions, with the additional query “grasping at every other option” that the test missed his cancer profile.
The doctor laughed in surprise, caveating that scientifically the test could miss a diagnosis but that the annual repetition of the test and advanced nature of the disease makes that very unlikely: “Given the fact that it’s a Gleason 9, which means it’s pretty wild looking in the sense of underneath, it doesn’t look like a normal prostate cancer prostate cell.”
He continued: “It’s not likely that his prostate specific antigen, his PSA, which is the test we’re talking about, would have been in the normal range. It would have been elevated above four. Andthat does say you should do something about it.”
“Now, you might test it again a few months later and see if the number has gone up or gone down, that you’ve got an aberrant reading for one reason or another, but I don’t – that doesn’t seem likely in this situation, either they didn’t test for it or they did test for it, they didn’t report it and we didn’t get the information as a public,” he added.
Watch above via MSNBC.
