Jill Biden Predicts Wave of Cancer Diagnoses After COVID-19

First Lady Jill Biden leaves the Church of the Society of Jesus in Quito, Ecuador, on May 20, 2022. Erin Schaff/Pool via Reuters

First Lady Jill Biden on Monday evening predicted there will be an increased number of cancer diagnoses following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden did not say that there would be a specific cause in the uptick in cancer diagnoses, but she pointed out that a number of people did not get routine medical checkups because of the pandemic. The first lady encouraged people to catch up on cancer screenings that were delayed.

Speaking to Newsmax, Biden said that “people are going back” to doctors “and they’re realizing, ‘Gosh, I forgot to get my colonoscopy; I didn’t get my mammogram; I didn’t get my skin screening.”

“I think in the next couple of months you’re going to see more cancers,” added the first lady. “It’s not a red issue, a blue issue,“ Jill Biden added. ”Cancer affects every American.”

President Joe Biden’s son, Beau, died from brain cancer seven years ago. During a recent event, the president claimed that his son “lost his life in Iraq” despite his son dying from a brain tumor at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

“I say this as the father of a man who won the Bronze Star, the conspicuous service medal and lost his life in Iraq,” Biden said during his speech in Colorado. It’s not clear why he made that comment, although some speculated it may have been in reference to Beau Biden having been allegedly exposed to toxic burn pits while stationed in Iraq.

In 2018, Biden told PBS that his son was located near Iraqi burn pits when he served in the military and linked it to cancer.

“We know now you don’t want to live underneath a smokestack where carcinogens are coming out of it,” Biden told PBS. “But there has yet to be, that I’m aware of, any direct scientific evidence that a particular person came back with higher instances, there’s a lot higher instances of cancer coming from Iraq now and Afghanistan than in other wars.”

In August, the president signed legislation expanding federal health care services for millions of veterans who were located near burn pits.

Rep.  Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), a former White House physician, wrote that the Iraq comment suggests Biden has impaired “cognitive ability” and questioned how he could be commander-in-chief if he has allegedly “forgotten moments in his life like this.”

“This has gone too far. Biden needs to take a cognitive exam,” Jackson added.