Dan Mitchinson: US correspondent on Biden's cancer diagnosis raising questions about his health in office

Joe Biden's earlier announcement that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer has revived questions about what health issues the former US president was facing while in office.

President Donald Trump recently claimed he was 'surprised' the public wasn't notified a long time ago - and this doctor also earlier said Biden was cognitively fine.

US correspondent Dan Mitchinson says people are curious about why more wasn't revealed sooner.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
International correspondence with Ends and Eye Insurance, Peace of Mind
for New Zealand Business, Dan Mitchinson, US correspondence with us
Elo Dan.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hello, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
You people get Pipper pig over there in the US.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, we do.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
I don't think it's as big as it is in
other parts of the world in Europe, but I'm glad
to see that the family has expanded by one.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
No, you don't want it because it's like crack cocaine
for the kids. Like they stopped watching it after five
minutes and their eyes are spinning. It's not good at all.
There's much more, it's much more relaxing things they can watch.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Explain something to me. How is it that Joe Biden
did not have at his age, did not have a
PSA for eleven years.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
That's a good question, because I'll tell you this is
a very common type of cancer and it can grow
fast without people displaying symptoms. Ironically, I just came back
yesterday and had blood work done for my PSA test
because cancer runs in the family, and so I've been
told a few years ago that I need to have

(01:00):
this tested more often and earlier in life. So it's
people in their forties and fifties, not seventies and eighties.
So I think that's one of the questions. And we
heard President Trump say, you know, how is this let
you know, to go on for so long without him
checking about it? And he says, I think we need
to find out what happened. Well, do we really need
to know what happened? I mean, he's in his early eighties,
and you know it's his his his medical issue right now.

(01:22):
But that is that is something I think people are
curious about that he hasn't had this done since twenty fourteen.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Hey, how's this news going down that the COVID jeb's
not going to be free for people anymore or for
most people anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Well, I think everybody's trying to figure out what's going
on here and what they're trying to do. And you know,
we are seeing more cases of COVID back here, I
mean with colleagues and around the state right now in
the Food and Drug Administration and saying, okay, let's focus
more on older Americans now, those that are more at risk,
which will be sixty five and above and younger as well.
So I think this is going to involve clinical trials

(01:54):
and it sounds like they're going to try to change
the direction for the FDA on how they decide their
recommendations at this point in time and not just sort
of give anybody and everybody these jabs. So they're saying
maybe one hundred million, maybe two hundred million Americans that
are considered a high risk are still going to have
access to the vaccines, but those that are younger may
have to go through a little bit more paperwork, or

(02:16):
maybe the doctor is going to have to ask a
few more questions before they just say right here, you go,
go take it fair enough?

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Fine? Is that what you do with every other jab?
You do that with the flu jab, you do it
with all the other stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
I think it really is up to everybody.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
I mean I never used to ever get the flu
jab until about four or five years ago, and it
just became so bad that I thought the flu was
actually worse than when I got COVID because it took
me three years to.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Get That's why you thought it, Because.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yes, yeah, and it was.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
I had to had the flu and I don't know
how long. But boy, once you get it, it's like shingles.
You don't want to get shingles. Again, so you go
and get the shingles vaccine.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Totally. I lay there when I had the flu one time.
I think I've only had it twice in my life,
but I lay there going, Oh, now, I understand why
people die from this. This is intense. Did you were
you a big fan of Cheese?

Speaker 3 (03:03):
I was talking to your producer Laura. Yes, I am
a huge Cheers fan, and I was actually really emotional
when I heard about George went and what why do
we get like this when these are people that we
have never met in person, who we really don't have
any interaction.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
With except through our television set.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
But I mean he was in a lot of movies
and shows, but Cheers playing Norm is his, you know,
iconic role. I mean, here's here's one of the clips
from the show.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
I am no longer in the employ of Goldstein, Borman
and Kawa Karmie. I discovered that so called medical corporation
was a polite term for den of thieves. They're in
the business of cheating on taxes.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Oh yeah, so you resigned in protest?

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Uh huh, Well, I took a long lunch in the canmy.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
I mean, his his call. He was seventy six his
cause of death wasn't announced. They found him in bed apparently.
And this was a show that was kind of like
mash was over here. It took a couple of seasons
to get going, but then it was a appointment television.
And it just kills me that your your producer had
to rub it into me and say, oh, I was
only one year old when that show ended, So should

(04:08):
I go back and start watching it.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
I'm like, yes, you should go back and start wo
how old you were?

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Were you going to say something else about it?

Speaker 2 (04:21):
No, I was just going to say it was.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
It was just one of those shows that I think
really kind of brought the country together back before streaming
and everybody could just record something. You know, you had
to be there at nine o'clock on a Thursday night,
and then you talked about it the next day at work.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
You know, on a Friday in the office.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
And we don't have a lot of shows like that
anymore because everybody can watch what they want.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
Nostalgia. Okay, even remember the time I went to all right, Dan,
thank you very much, go and enjoy yourself. That's Dan Mitchinson,
US correspondent. I could tell. I could just tell he
wasn't finished reminiscing about that. I for more from Hither
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