Fact check: Misinformation after Biden's cancer diagnosis
A statement released by the former US President Joe
's office and cited by international media informed that the 82-year-old had been diagnosed with an "aggressive" prostate cancer that had "metastasized to the bone."
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The cancer diagnosis drew an outpouring of sympathy from supporters and rivals alike.
But the news also ignited speculations among Trump allies, and misinformation on social media platforms.
Hours after the information became public, inaccuracies started circulating about Biden's diagnosis and speculations about whether his medical condition was known before and hidden from the public. These were shared by prominent political figures and commentators.
DW Fact check analyzed the most viral claims.
Claim: "What I want to know is how did Dr Jill Biden miss stage five metastatic cancer or is this yet another coverup???" Donald Trump Jrwrote on X. The post reached 5.4 million people and was liked by 37K people at the time of publishing.
DW Fact check: False
X Post by Donald Trump Jr. claiming that Biden has "stage five" metastatic cancer (Image: @DonaldJTrumpJr/X)
In the post, the US president's oldest son and CEO of the Trump Organization refers to Biden's prostate cancer as a "stage five" cancer.
This is inaccurate and can lead to confusion.
German Cancer Aid (German: Deutsche Krebshilfe) is a not-for-profit organization that fights cancer in all its forms. It explains that there are two internationally standardized classifications for prostate cancer: the TNM staging system and the Gleason grading system.
How are cancer diagnoses classified?
The TNM classification describes the overall stage of different types of cancer, based on standards that indicate: the size and extent of the tumor (T), if the cancer cells have invaded the lymph nodes (N) and if metastases (M) are present in other organs.
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Once determined, these values are combined to assign an overall stage, usually described with a Roman number from I (1) to IV (4).
As the American Cancer Society explains, stage I cancers are less advanced and have a better prognosis, while in stage IV the cancer has spread (metastasized) to distant parts of the body and might require intense treatment.
The Gleason grading system, on the other hand, is specific to prostate cancer and is used to assess its aggressiveness in terms of cell differentiation and growth pattern.
Pathologists examine prostate tissue and assign grades from 1 to 5, depending on how much the tumor cells resemble healthy prostate cells. Lower grades indicate bigger similarity, while higher ones describe a bigger difference.
The grades of the two most common tumor cells are then added up, resulting in the Gleason score with a range between 2 to 10.
In short, both medical standards describe different characteristics.
The TNM classification system evaluates the stage of development of different types of cancer, while the Gleason grading system determines how aggressive a prostate cancer is.
What is Biden's diagnosis?
The statement released by the Personal Office of Joe Biden said his prostate cancer was characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5), meaning a very aggressive cancer.
Claiming that Biden has a "stage five metastatic cancer" is therefore false, as there is no "stage five" (V) cancer in the TNM classification system.
In his post, Donald Trump Jralso talks about "Dr Jill Biden" missing her husband's cancer diagnosis. It is worth clarifying that Jill Biden is not a doctor in the medical sense but in an academic one. According to her biography, she holds a Doctor of Education (EdD) and doesn't have a degree in medicine or health sciences-related areas.
Jill Biden has, nevertheless, dedicated part of her career as an advocate for more cancer education and prevention.
Back in 1993, she launched the Biden Breast Health Initiative to educate high school girls about early detection and prevention of this type of cancer.
Claim: "Prostate cancer is the easiest cancer to diagnose when it first starts and to watch it progress to bone metastases. […] For even with the most aggressive form, it is a 5-7 year journey without treatment before it becomes metastatic. [...] It is highly likely he was carrying a diagnosis of prostate cancer throughout his White House tenure and the American people were uninformed," reads a screenshot of an X post by Dr
, founder and CEO of Atossa Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutics for breast cancer.
X Post by Dr. Steve Quay claiming it was "highly likely he (Biden) was carrying a diagnosis of prostate cancer throughout his White House tenure" (Image: @quay_dr/X)
Quay is also known for co-authoring the book The Origin of the Virus, which supports the hypothesis that the virus causing COVID-19 originated from a laboratory. The post reached 5.5 million users and was liked 39K times, at the time of publishing.
DW Fact check: Unproven
In his viral X post, Donald Trump Jralso raises the question of whether Biden's medical condition had been covered up and shares a screenshot from an X post shared by physician and scientist, Dr Steven Quay.
Dr Quay claims that it is "highly likely" that Biden was diagnosed with prostate cancer while he was still president of the United States and that the "American people were uninformed" about this.
Biden's physical health and mental capacity were the focus of scrutiny during the last months of his presidency. He dropped out of his reelection campaign weeks after a bad performance during a debate against his then-rival, Donald Trump.
On May 20, journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson released the book Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. The book has made headlines as the authors allege Biden's inner circle hid his physical and cognitive decline from the public during his presidency and particularly in the lead-up to the 2024 election, and Biden's potential re-election. Biden's current prostate cancer diagnosis is not included in the book.
In February 2024, the White House published Biden's official health summary. The document signed by the longtime president'
, Dr Kevin C O'Connor, mentions Biden was being treated for a removed basal cell carcinoma (a common and relatively unaggressive form of skin cancer), obstructive sleep apnea, gastroesophageal reflux and stiffened ambulatory gait.
But there wasn't any mention of the small nodule that was found during Biden's routine physical exam last week, and which the mediahad already reported, before the prostate cancer was confirmed.
As Biden's 2024 health summary describes, it is not the first time that Biden has been diagnosed with some type of cancer. In 2023, the same physician confirmed to the New York Times the removal of the cancerous lesion from the president's chest, as cited in the summary.
X Post by political commentator Nick Sortor (Image: @nicksortor/X)
The information around Biden's cancerous lesion resonates with another claim by the political commentator Nick Sortor. He re-posted an old video of Joe Biden in which he is heard saying he had cancer.
Sortor then asks whether the Biden administration has been covering up his health diagnosis "for years."
Has Biden already admitted to having had cancer in the past?
The video appears to be from a speech Biden gave in Massachusetts in 2022. During his speech, Biden said "that's why I and so damn many other people I grew up [with] have cancer."
The video published by Sortor has not been digitally doctored, as suspected by some users online. The official White House transcript of the speech confirms Biden said those words.
At the time, the clip had caused controversy and was shared, especially by Biden's opponents, to highlight that the US President was announcing he had cancer.
The White House, however, dismissed this claim and said the then-US President was referring to a previous diagnosis of skin cancer.
Biden's former spokesperson, Andrew Bates confirmed the former US President had had non-melanoma skin cancer removed (Image: X)
Biden's former spokesperson, Andrew Bates, posted a link that confirmed Biden had had non-melanoma skin cancers removed before he became president.
This, nevertheless, did not quell the criticism, especially among those who have highlighted that Biden was speaking in the present tense in Massachusetts, not in the past tense.
Now, the post has resurfaced as part of Biden's official cancer diagnosis.
As to whether the Biden administration has covered up his health diagnosis "for years," as Sortor claims, or Donald Trump Jr., this is something Biden's team has denied in the past.
His former spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, said in 2024, as part of the controversy over Biden's health said that the administration had been "transparent" about the former president's health.
"We have put forward a thorough, transparent annual report on his health," she said.
No statement has been made by Biden or his office on the new speculations.
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