Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Joe Biden hadn\u2019t received a commonly used blood test to check for prostate cancer for more than a decade before his recent diagnosis, the former president\u2019s office said Tuesday amid questions about his health while in the White House.<\/p>\n
Biden last received a prostate-specific antigen test to screen for prostate cancer in 2014, according to a brief statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrior to Friday, President Biden had never been diagnosed with prostate cancer,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The statement came as President Donald Trump and his allies have challenged the timing of the diagnosis, which came as Biden faced questions about his health with the release of a book asserting that aides worked to hide his physical and mental decline while in office.<\/p>\n
The announcement that the former president has an aggressive form of prostate cancer, with metastasis to the bone<\/a>, has shaken Washington as many Democrats grapple with reports of his declining health during his final two years in the White House \u2014 and the implications for the 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n Even some allies have questioned how Biden\u2019s doctors failed to spot such a serious condition, even as his annual physicals attracted close scrutiny<\/a> as president.<\/p>\n Trump seized on the confusion Monday, telling reporters Biden\u2019s cancer should have been flagged earlier and then attacking the former president\u2019s mental acuity.<\/p>\n The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends<\/a> that men over the age of 70 refrain from routine screening<\/a> for prostate cancer. The former president was in his early 70s in 2014, in the middle of serving a second term as President Barack Obama\u2019s vice president.<\/p>\n