Doctors: Lloyd Austin was treated for prostate cancer, urinary tract infection

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has prostate cancer and his recent secretive hospitalization was for surgery and later to treat an urinary tract infection related to that operation, doctors said Tuesday.

Austin, 70, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Dec. 22 and had surgery to treat the cancer. Austin developed the infection a week later. Senior administration and defense officials were not told for days about his hospitalization or his cancer.

Doctors said the cancer was detected when Austin had a regular screening in early December. They said he “underwent a minimally invasive surgical procedure” on Dec. 22 and went home the next day. But Jan. 1 he reported nausea and severe abdominal, hip, and leg pain because of the infection.

They said his prostate cancer was detected early, and his prognosis is excellent.

Also Tuesday, the White House chief of staff ordered Cabinet members or secretaries to notify his office if they ever can’t perform their duties, as the Biden administration, reeling from learning of Austin’s

illness last week, mounts a policy review.

Jeff Zients, in a memo to Cabinet secretaries obtained by The Associated Press, directed that they send the White House any existing procedures for delegating authority in the event of incapacitation or loss of communication by Friday.

While the review is ongoing, he is requiring agencies to notify his office and the office of Cabinet affairs at the White House if an agency experiences or plans to experience a circumstance in which a Cabinet head can’t perform their duties.

The memo comes after President Joe Biden and other top officials weren’t informed for days that Austin had been hospitalized and had turned over power to his deputy, Kathleen Hicks. Hicks was not told the reason for three days. The White House was not informed Austin was in the hospital until Jan. 4, and the public and Congress didn’t learn of it until a day later.

A Pentagon spokesman blamed the lapse on a key staffer being out sick with the flu.

KENNY HOLSTON/THE NEW YORK TIMES 2023 Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was hospitalized recently for complications following prostate cancer surgery. His secret hospitalization has led to a policy review by the White House chief of staff and Biden administration on absent Cabinet officials.