World Citizen Blog

Bush Had Positive Colon Cancer Test

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Doctors found and removed five small polyps from President Bush�s colon during a cancer screening yesterday that forced him to relinquish his presidential powers to Vice President Dick Cheney for two hours and five minutes.

Scott M. Stanzel, a White House spokesman, said the polyps were not deemed worrisome on visual inspection by a team of doctors from the National Naval Medical Center, who performed the procedure in Camp David, Md. In a statement released late yesterday morning, Mr. Stanzel said the polyps would be sent to the Naval Medical Center for testing.

Mr. Stanzel said there would be a 48- to 72-hour wait for the results. He described the polyps as less than a centimeter in diameter each.

Before the screening, Mr. Bush sent a letter to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and the president pro tem of the Senate, Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, in which he invoked Section 3 of the 25th Amendment of the Constitution in transferring power to Mr. Cheney. Afterward, he sent another letter declaring, �I am presently able to resume the discharge of the constitutional powers and duties of the office of the president of the United States.�