After Joe Biden‘s shock cancer diagnosis, attention is now being shifted toward his friend and former White House doctor.
Biden, 82, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that experts say was likely growing silently for years while he was in office.
As Physician to the President, Dr Kevin O’Connor, known to Biden simply as ‘doc,’ was responsible for coordinating all of the former president’s medical tests, medications and checkups.
Doctors tell the Daily Mail that ordering blood testing or prostate health exams likely fell under his supervision.
Dr Howie Forman, a professor of radiology and biomedical imaging, public health management and economics at Yale, said: ‘It is inconceivable that this was not being followed before he left the Presidency.’
The potential oversight means Biden’s cancer has now spread to his bones, where his chances of being cured are significantly lower.
Prostate cancer is diagnosed with a simple blood test that looks for proteins produced by the prostate gland. It detects around 90 percent of people with the disease.
Dr O’Connor has been the former president’s personal doctor for over a decade, even helping to comfort Biden’s son Beau as he fought brain cancer.
Despite doctors suggesting the cancer had been growing for several years, Dr O’Connor gave Biden a clean bill of health last year and gave no indication he had been tested for prostate cancer.
Dr Kevin O’Connor, pictured here, served as the personal doctor to Joe Biden for a decade. However, he missed the prostate cancer that had likely been growing in Biden for years
Dr O’Conor is pictured here with Biden. As Physician to the President, Dr O’Connor’s job was to coordinate all of the president’s medical care
The 2024 physical report read: ‘The President feels well and this year’s physical identified no new concerns.
‘He continues to be fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations.
The White House physician, or Physician to the President, is responsible for coordinating all of the president’s medical care and communicating health issues with the public.
Any test, including cancer screening, Biden would undergo would have to be approved and evaluated by this physician personally.
Dr O’Connor was appointed to White House Physician shortly after Biden’s inauguration in 2021, personally handpicked by the president after he dismissed Donald Trump’s doctor.
He graduated with his medical degree from the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1992.
He is also a 22-year US Army medic who helped Biden’s son James create a healthcare program for veterans.
Dr O’Connor worked closely with the Biden family after Biden’s son Beau was diagnosed with brain cancer, according to the president’s memoir ‘Promise Me Dad.’
The book states Dr O’Connor helped counsel Beau on treatment options and his prognosis.
He was also in the operating room to help calm Beau as he underwent a craniotomy for glioblastoma.
But Dr O’Connor has been criticized publicly before.
Texas representative Ronny Jackson previously accused Dr O’Connor and the Bidens of covering up Biden’s cognitive decline.
Jackson blamed it on the doctor’s close personal relationship with the Biden family.
He said last year: ‘Kevin O’Connor is like a son to Jill Biden — she loves him. It’s crazy.
‘Kevin O’Connor was in that job on day one of the Biden administration because they knew they could trust Kevin to say and do anything that needed to be said or done and cover up whatever needed to be covered up.
‘He is part of the Biden family.’
Dr O’Connor was handpicked by the Biden family and helped the president’s son, Beau, through his brain cancer battle
Politicians have said Dr O’Connor, pictured here with Biden in 2023, was ‘like a son’ to the president and the first lady
Dr O’Connor, pictured here, gave Biden a clean bill of health last year and said there were ‘no new concerns’
Dr O’Connor also said last year Biden didn’t need a cognitive test, despite many calling for one ahead of the election.
He also claimed Biden had not seen a neurologist ‘outside of his annual physical.’
Dr O’Connor’s full work-up conducted last February showed the former president had sleep apnea, acid reflux, an irregular heartbeat, high cholesterol, allergies, arthritis and nerve damage in his feet.
There were no indications Biden underwent a prostate exam. Dr O’Connor also told the New York Post Biden was in ‘excellent health.’
This could be because the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends against prostate cancer screening for men over 70.
The task force says this is due to a combination of factors, including the potential for overdiagnosis and overtreatment, the risk of false positives, and the fact that prostate cancer often grows slowly, with many men dying with the cancer, not from it.
This means the risks of treating the cancer, which takes years to grow when men are already likely to die, outweigh the benefits.
However, doctors also speculated Biden would have been an exception to the rule and should have been screened during his time in the White House.
Dr Howie Forman said Monday the blood test for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) would have shown he had cancer ‘for some time before this diagnosis,’ given how aggressive it is.
‘It’s just so odd to discover this with bone [metastasis] in a man of his stature and [with his] access to care,’ he added.
