One of the oldest antivax tropes, one I recall encountering beginning soon after I started paying attention to the antivaccine movement, is that vaccines somehow cause cancer. As I wrote ten years ago, the original version of this claim derived from the observation that an early batche of the polio vaccine from the 1950s, particularly Albert Sabin’s oral vaccine, were contaminated with SV40, which led to a “cancer epidemic” over the coming decades. (SV40 is a monkey virus known as SV40, which stands for “Simian Vacuolating Virus 40” and was found to have contaminated some of the cells that the virus was grown in, specifically kidney cells derived from Asian rhesus monkeys.) The gory details aren’t important for purposes of what I’m about to discuss—and I’ve already written in depth about what happened and why this claim, although plausible because SV40 was one of the first oncogenic viruses ever discovered, turned out not to have any good evidence to support it. (Oncogenes are genes that cause cancer in experimental animals and, in some cases, humans.)
Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for antivaxxers to try to link COVID-19 vaccines to cancer as well, with attempts beginning even before the FDA granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer vaccine two years ago. First, they falsely claimed that the mRNA vaccines “permanently alter your DNA” even though basic molecular biology should have told them that mRNA in the vaccine can’t integrate into your genome, and that the mRNA vaccines were “gene therapy, not vaccines” complete with a conspiracy theory about the CDC having supposedly changed the definition of a vaccine to include them. Next came misrepresenting old studies to claim that mRNA causes cancer. More recently, long-time antivax lawyer Thomas Renz got access to the Defense Medical Epidemiology Database (DMED), a database tracking the health of military personnel, and used it to make claims that are, at best erroneous and at worst intentionally misleading, specifically that COVID-19 vaccines have resulted in an epidemic of cancer in military personnel, including a nearly 900% increase in esophageal cancer and a nearly 500% increase in breast and thyroid cancers since before the military imposed its vaccine mandate. As I explained at the time, the claims were incredible on their face just from a scientific plausibility standpoint given that we know from the nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the cancers due to the most powerful carcinogen of all, large doses of ionizing radiation, take at least two years to begin showing up (leukemias) while most solid cancers don’t show up for around 10 years. Given that the vaccines were only introduced to the general population two years ago, even if the vaccines were as powerful a carcinogen as an ionizing radiation dose from being exposed when a nuclear bomb goes off, it would be only now that we might be beginning to see a glimmer of a cancer signal for leukemias, and even then most people didn’t receive the vaccine until months or even a year later, making too soon.
“Turbo cancer”: The new version of the vaccine-cancer lie
I suspect that even antivaxxers promoting the “COVID-19 vaccine-cancer link” probably realized—or have come to realize—deep down in what remains of their hearts the utter implausibility of their claim that COVID-19 vaccines are responsible for a wave of cancer. (At least those with any actual knowledge of cancer biology and molecular biology probably do.) That’s why, as antivaxxers often due in response to science and evidence, they have been moving the goalposts over the last few months hence the claim now that COVID-19 vaccines cause what they have dubbed “turbo cancer”. For instance:
I haven’t been able to ascertain when and by whom the term “turbo cancer” was coined with respect to COVID-19 vaccines. According to Google, use of the term dates back to at least the fall 2020, where I found it in the comments of a post about the impending EUA for the Pfizer vaccine, after which a commenter sarcastically wrote on November 30, 2020, “I can’t wait for the turbo cancer”. Unsurprisingly, besides Dr. Charles Hoffe (cited in the Tweet above), the Idaho pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole (who is also known for pushing the false COVID-19 vaccine-cancer link) uses the term, as does a Swedish pathologist named Dr. Ute Kruege. Truth be told, even though the term “turbo cancer” appears to have been bubbling around the darker depths of COVID-19 antivax conspiracy social media since sometime in 2020 at least, I didn’t start seeing it used much until early this year, and it didn’t really take off to the point of entering the mainstream zeitgeist until the summer and fall. I must admit that, as propaganda, it’s a frighteningly effective phrase, which is why I feel a bit embarrassed that I haven’t addressed the claim before.
The forms of evidence used generally consist of anecdotes and a claim that there has been a huge increase in excess mortality from cancer since the vaccines rolled out. First, let’s look at typical anecdotes, which started with pathologists like Cole and Kruege claiming that they were observing a huge increase in the number of cancers they’ve been seeing, an increase that neither has apparently seen fit to publish in the scientific literature and that other pathologists do not appear to be reporting, other than on Rumble or on antivax conspiracy sites. For instance, Kreuge claims:
Doctors for Covid Ethics posted an interview with her where she shared her concerns about unusual features that have been showing up in samples from the past year.
- Age – The average ages of the samples she received dropped, with a rise in the number of samples from people in their 30’s-50’s.
- Size – It used to be unusual for Dr. Kruger to find a tumor 3 cm in size. In this new environment, she’s regularly seeing tumors of 4 cm, 8 cm, 10 cm, and the occasional 12 cm. In a shocking anecdote, 2 weeks ago she found a 16 cm tumor that took up an entire breast.
- Multiple Tumors – Dr. Kruger has begun to see more cases of multiple tumors growing in the same patient, sometimes even in both breasts. She had 3 cases within 3 weeks of patients who had tumors growing in multiple organs. One had tumors in his/her breast, pancreas and lungs within months of getting vaccinated.
- Recurrence – There has been an uptick in patients who have been in remission from their cancer for many years, suddenly getting an aggressive recurrence of their cancer shortly after vaccination.
Of course, without actual controls, this is nothing more than the anecdotal claimed experience of two pathologists, who claim to have found a huge increase in cancer in their practices and decided that correlation (which was not shown) must equal causation because to antivaxxers it has to be the vaccines that explain any increase in a disease. It’s not good evidence of even an association between the vaccines and subsequent development or progression of cancer. In any event, let’s dig into the “turbo cancer” claim.
COVID-19 vaccines and “turbo cancer”: Hematologic malignancies
What is the difference between the more mundane antivax claims that somehow the mRNA vaccines are causing cancer and the claim that they are causing “turbo cancer”? Part of the idea is that the vaccines are somehow resulting in an epidemic of unusually aggressive fast-growing cancers (hence the term “turbo”) in young people or that they are reactivating cancers that were either in remission or previously under good control in a—you guessed it—”turbo” form that rapidly grows and spreads. For instance, check out this two minute video excerpt from one of Dr. Hoffe’s talks:
The video describes the case of a patient with an angioimmunoblastic T cell lymphoma whose cancer was reported to have started growing rapidly after he received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, published in November 2021 by a group of investigators in Brussels. This case report is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a great example of confusing correlation with causation. Let’s quote the case report:
A 66-year-old man with no significant medical history except for hypertension, hypercholesterolemia and type 2 diabetes presented on September 1, 2021 with cervical lymphadenopathies that became recently apparent during a flu-like syndrome. The two doses of BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine had been administered, respectively, 5 and 6 months earlier in the left deltoid. Besides moderate asthenia, he did not report any constitutional symptom. Blood examination indicated a mild inflammatory syndrome, without anemia or white blood cell changes; Lymphocytes immunophenotyping was unremarkable. Protein electrophoresis and immunoglobulin levels were normal and Coombs test was negative. A 18F-FDG PET/CT revealed multiple voluminous hypermetabolic lymphadenopathies above and below the diaphragm as well as several extra-nodal hypermetabolic lesions (Figure 1, left panel). Considering a presumptive diagnosis of stage IV lymphoma, a left cervical lymph node biopsy was performed. Pathological examination revealed residual atrophic germinal centers, surrounded by an expanded paracortical area composed of an atypical T-cell infiltrate with clear cell morphology, expressing TFH cell markers (CD3, CD4, PD1, ICOS, BCL6, CXCL13) and a loss of CD7. The paracortical area contained an increased number of high-endothelial venules, supported by an increased number of follicular dendritic cell networks, with some foci of EBV+ B-cell immunoblastic proliferation in the background (Figure 2). These features highly suggested a diagnosis of AngioImmunoblastic T cell Lymphoma (AITL), pattern 2.
So this man was diagnosed with an angioimmunoblastic T cell lymphoma six months after having received the Moderna vaccine. This particular form of lymphoma is described as a “rare, often but not always, aggressive (fast-growing) form of peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL).” It’s also a disease that is almost always advanced when it is first diagnosed, either stage III or IV. Its prognosis is generally poor, with “disease relapse and infections” being “common with this cancer,” and a five year overall survival (OS) of 63% and progression-free survival (PFS) of 41% for low risk disease, which fall to an OS of 21% and 13% for high risk disease. So right off the bat, this patient had a poor prognosis at the time of diagnosis. Likely he had “turbo cancer” that had nothing to do with vaccines.
Here’s what happened next:
Fourteen days after the PET/CT, a booster dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine was administered in the right deltoid in preparation of the first cycle of chemotherapy. Within a few days following the vaccine booster, the patient reported noticeable swelling of right cervical lymph nodes. In order to get a baseline close to the initiation of the therapy, a second 18F-FDG PET/CT was performed 8 days after the vaccine booster administration, i.e. 22 days after the first one.
For those who haven’t seen PET scans before, the black areas are areas that take up the tracer and are therefore more metabolically active. Given that cancer cells are generally more metabolically active than normal cells, this indicates an increase in the extent of the cancer (other than the brain, which is highly metabolically active normally). Of course, just as likely, if not more so, is the possibility that the tumor was rapidly growing at the time of diagnosis and the vaccine had nothing to do with its rapid progression over 22 days. Indeed, it strains credulity that anything could cause such rapid progression in a mere eight days.
The authors speculated that the mRNA from the vaccine had gotten to the lymph nodes under the arm (axillary lymph nodes) and somehow fired up the cancer. By way of background, it is known that injection of COVID-19 vaccines in the shoulder can, because of the lymphatic drainage patterns of the arm, lead to lymphadeopathy (enlargement of the lymph nodes) under the arm, due to inflammation and immune reaction to the vaccine, a phenomenon that was soon found to interfere with the interpretation of routine screening mammograms. The authors noted that, on biopsy, the “pathological picture showed reactive benign changes with prominent germinal centers.” The authors speculated that somehow the vaccine stimulated T follicular helper (TFH) cells and somehow promoted cancer growth:
In fact, the supposed enhancing action of the vaccine on AITL neoplastic cells is fully consistent with previous observations identifying TFH cells within germinal centers as key targets of nucleoside-modified mRNA vaccines both in animals and in man (1, 2). Malignant TFH cells, the hallmark of AITH, might be especially sensitive to mRNA vaccines when they harbor the RHOA G17V mutation which was present in our case. Indeed, this mutation facilitates proliferation and activation of several signaling pathways in TFH cells (16). Furthermore, mice genetically engineered to reproduce the RHOA G17V and TET2 mutations—both were present in our case—develop lymphoma upon immunization with sheep red blood cells (16). This experimental observation is relevant to RNA vaccines as RNA of sheep red blood cells was shown to be responsible for their ability to stimulate TFH and induce germinal center reaction (17).
Antivaxxers generally do not mention that the authors also wrote that “extrapolation of the findings of this case to other patients with AITL or other peripheral T cell lymphoma involving TFH cells is premature” because “AITL patients are rare and their mutation profile is heterogeneous” and “their immune reactions might be affected by their treatment,” while concluding that, whatever the result of further studies of the effect of mRNA vaccines on AITL, “it should not affect the overall favorable benefit-risk ratio of these much-needed vaccines.” In any event, this case report did involve a lot of handwaving and speculation, which led me to ask: Have followup studies (unmentioned, of course, by antivaxxers) supported this idea?
The answer is: Not much. There’s a case report of recurrence of a primary cutaneous CD30-positive lymphoproliferative disorder following COVID-19 vaccination that doesn’t show evidence of causation. There’s also a case report of two hematologic malignancies diagnosed in the context of the mRNA vaccination campaign published in June, a case of a diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosed one week after her second dose dose of the Pfizer vaccine and a case of T/NK lymphoma manifested on the third day after the initial dose of the Pfizer vaccine. The rapid sequence implies, more than anything else, that these diagnoses were likely coincidence, with the authors themselves pointing out, “The link between the two events reported is only temporal,” adding that “any clinical event, especially when associated with novel vaccines or treatments, should be reported, as this is the starting point for additional investigations of particular mechanisms of action, thus consolidating knowledge about the safety profile, to the benefit of the patients.” Overall, there is no evidence suggesting causation of hematologic malignancies by COVID-19 vaccines, and the changes in lymph nodes observed are generally benign.
There’s another anecdote, published by Roxanne Khamsi in The Atlantic (which, unfortunately, has “balanced” great pandemic reporting by Ed Yong and others with outright conspiratorial nonsense) titled “Did a famous doctor’s COVID shot make his cancer worse?” The article featured one of the patients from the case report of the angiolymphatic T-cell lymphoma report, who turned out to be Michel Goldman, described as a “Belgian immunologist and one of Europe’s best-known champions of medical research.” One thing I learned reading the article is that Goldman is rather naïve:
“I would say that 95 percent of the reactions were extremely friendly,” Michel told me later. But as he’d feared, anti-vaccine activists picked up on the story. “The lymph nodes of those who have taken these shots are exploding, burgeoning, and bulging with this toxic bioweapon,” a right-wing influencer named Jane Ruby wrote on Telegram beneath a screenshot of Michel’s CT scans, which had appeared in his published paper (and are reproduced in this article). “LYMPHOMA – That’s right… Cancer of the lymphatic system … STOP THIS FROM GETTING INTO BABIES AND CHILDREN!!!!!” Ruby’s claims were amplified on Natural News, among other anti-vaccination sites where, again, the very images that Michel’s brother had used to diagnose his illness were presented as shocking evidence of vaccination’s dangers. “PHOTOS: LYMPHOMA CANCER EXPLODING IN THE BOOSTED,” one website said. When I told Michel about these online posts, he shook his head in disappointment. “They’re looking for anything to support their crazy vision,” he said. “It makes me sad about the world in which we are living.” That’s not to say he was surprised. Michel knew, for instance, that medical experts have dispelled false rumors about vaccines infecting people with COVID-19. He told me that he’d obsessed over getting the tone of the manuscript exactly right, so as not to fuel vaccine skepticism. He was careful, for example, to describe the vaccine as possibly “inducing” the “progression” of his cancer—rather than “causing” it to surface. “I spent hours and hours,” he said. “I’ve never spent so much time on details in a paper.”
I could have told Goldman that it wouldn’t have mattered how he and his brother phrased the case report, that it would have been used the way it was used regardless. I’ll also say that, having read the case report, I can’t honestly say that the article wasn’t written clearly enough to make it sound as though Goldman and his brother were speculating that the vaccine might have “induced” the “progression” of his tumor. Moreover, whether or not they realized it, Goldman and his brother actually handed antivaxxers another talking point to replace the antivax claim that the COVID-19 vaccines were causing cancer with a more credible-seeming claim that they were fueling “progression” of “turbo cancer” in people who already had it, particularly those whose cancers were either in remission or had been growing slowly or not at all under treatment. None of this is to say that his case report shouldn’t have been published, just that Goldman shouldn’t have been the least bit surprised by how his case report was weaponized by the antivaccine movement, particularly given this speculation that was in the paper but that I quote from the Atlantic article because it’s more layperson-friendly:
He also came across another, very important clue. In 2018, a team of researchers based at Columbia University’s Institute for Cancer Genetics had published an intriguing study using mice with a pair of gene mutations that, when they co-occur, predispose T cells to go rogue. (Michel’s tumor, which had been sequenced by this point, showed the same two mutations.) When these mice were injected with sheep red-blood cells—as an experimental stand-in for invading microbes—the animals developed the subtype of lymphoma that was diagnosed in Michel. Now Michel had a theory to explain the bleak coincidence that had befallen him. Serge agreed that it made sense. The brothers had co-written research papers in the past, including ones on the use of stem cells for heart repair and dendritic-cell vaccines for cancer. It was time for them to write another.
Again, speculation of a link and what mechanism might account for it is not inappropriate in the scientific literature, but no one should be surprised when that link and the mechanism become antivax talking points. Goldman can go on Belgian TV all he likes and say that vaccination is safer than not being vaccinated, but he should realize that his contributing to an article like this one in The Atlantic actually undermines his message, given the bothsidesism in the reporting. While the report did correctly point out how difficult it is to report on potentially rare side effects of a vaccine, in my assessment it gave a bit too much attention to Goldman’s speculative claim, although I was very happy to see that Goldman was doing well when the article was written.
Other “theories” of causation
I will note that Goldman’s idea is not the only speculative “theory” that antivaxxers tout. For example, Ryan Cole—the Idaho pathologist whom we’ve met before spreading the claim that he’s seeing lots and lots more cancer, which he attributes to COVID-19 vaccines, of course:
According to Cole, human cells have so-called toll-like receptors (TLRs) that classify whether a foreign object in the body is harmful or not. “When the [COVID-19] shots go into the body, they turn some of these [TLRs] off. Normally, they have to be on,” he said. The pathologist added that when the vaccines turn off some of these TLRs, the immune system’s alert mechanism is compromised as a result. TLR7 and TLR8 are in charge of detecting viruses, while TLR3 and TLR4 are responsible for keeping cancer in check.
I’ve discussed before that this is a misrepresentation of the science in that the modified RNA used in the mRNA vaccines do not change the ability of the immune system to recognize anything other than the modified mRNA:
The UK Column article claimed that the study used RNA modifications to “turn off [T]oll-like receptors”. But no such thing is described in the study by Karikó et al. The modifications and their effects are associated with the modified RNA only, and don’t change the ability of TLRs to detect other microbial components. To use an analogy, modifying RNA is like putting on camouflage to evade detection by sentries guarding a border. But those sentries remain capable of detecting other intruders that don’t have the camouflage. Furthermore, as Karikó et al. noted, the modifications used in the study are also observed in nature, and mammalian RNA is naturally replete with such modifications. If the article’s claim that such modifications weaken the immune system were true to begin with, then such pre-existing modifications alone would be enough to weaken the immune system even without the COVID-19 vaccines. In short, the article misrepresented the study’s findings and is inconsistent with real-world observations.
Cole, I note, basically parrots the claim in the article cited in the excerpt above, and adds to it this claim:
Furthermore, he pointed out that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds to the P53 gene – the so-called “guardian of the genome” – which suppresses tumors. The spike protein’s S1 subunit also binds to the TMPRSS-2 gene linked to prostate cancer in men and the BRCA genes linked to breast cancer in women. “We’re giving a shot that makes a spike protein. That’s a toxin that triggers cancer genes in bad ways and turns off other pattern receptors,” Cole told theNew American
contributor. “We don’t know how long the immune system is suppressed after these shots and how long these receptors are shut off – because those studies aren’t done.”
p53 is indeed arguably the most important tumor suppressor gene. Genetic syndromes in which p53 function is decreased or eliminated do, in fact, lead to a vastly increased risk of a number of cancers. Where did Cole get this claim from? There is evidence that SARS-CoV-2 infection can lead to downregulation (decreased production/activity) of p53, suggesting that persistent COVID-19 infection could be a risk factor for developing cancer because of lower P53 levels detected in patients with severe COVID-19 and long COVID. There is also an in silico (computer modeling) study from 2020 suggesting that the spike protein can interact with p53.
A recent review article notes:
A direct interplay between p53 and SARS-CoV-2 has been suggested for the first time following an in silico study reporting on the ability of the S2 subunit of the virus to physically and strongly interact with p53 (Singh and Bharara Singh, 2020). In the same line, another mechanism of interaction has been highlighted in a large animal model study showing that p53 can regulate ACE2 receptor in a tissue- and sex-specific fashion (Zhang et al., 2021). It is of interest that the reported higher expression of ACE2 in females can be related to estrogens activity, and perhaps contributing to the lower disease susceptibility of females compared to males (Bonaccorsi et al., 2020). Thus, this first level of interactions between p53 and SARS-CoV-2 occurs via the modulation of ACE2 expression in a sex-related manner and via a direct interaction between the S2 subunit of the viral spike protein and p53, although the significance of this interaction has not been addressed so far. Of note, a direct regulatory activity of p53 on SARS-CoV-2 replication is a shared feature characterizing other previous coronaviruses (Ma-Lauer et al., 2016).
Note that, first, all of this, even if it pans out, says nothing about the vaccine; rather, it is about persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection, not vaccination. The vaccine only transiently produces the spike protein, which is rapidly externalized. If it weren’t externalized, then it wouldn’t be able to provoke an immune response. p53 is not just an intracellular protein, but, unlike the spike protein, is primarily an protein of the nucleus. Vaccination is transient by nature, and, even if this proposed interaction were relevant, would require prolonged interaction between spike and p53. Basically, this is antivaxxers doing what antivaxxers like to do, pulling a claim out of their nether regions and then looking for scientific studies that can be twisted to support that claim, no matter how tenuous the support, leading to headlines like this one from Mike Adams, “THE VACCINE-CANCER ATROCITY: Like clockwork, most vaccinated Americans will lose immune function by Christmas and start growing accelerated CANCER tumors that will kill them over the next ten years“.
Let’s just say that I’ll take my chances.
Excess mortality
Another claim going around to support the conspiracy theory that the vaccines are causing “turbo cancer” comes from—among other sources—the horribly self-named The Ethical Skeptic (TES). The claims coming from TES arise from his incompetent analysis of CDC provisional death statistics. I might have to go into the claims in more detail in a subsequent post, but for now let me just thank Prof. Jeffrey Morris for deconstructing these claims almost four months ago so that I don’t have to do so now, given how long this post has become.
Prof. Morris notes first:
An anonymous, apparently very experienced and prolific analytical systems modeler who is heavily followed on twitter, @EthicalSkeptic, has been modeling the publicly CDC provisional deaths by cause data for the past 6 months, and concludes from his models that a specific factor (which must not be named) in early Spring 2021 introduced an inherent change point into the data leading to increasingly high numbers of excess deaths in the USA…These posts have been very influential, with many touting them as evidence of serious harm, and others dismissing them outright. The lack of detailed documentation of the analytical steps make it difficult for others to evaluate his model and conclusions.
Unfortunately, although TES blocked me on Twitter making it hard for me to verify, this does appear to be true. In any event, Prof. Morris carefully looks at TES’s claims and finds them…lacking. First, it’s very instructive to look at one of Prof. Morris’s many graphs:
Prof. Morris observes:
We see how the the mid-2020 and early 2021 major deficits resulted in ~4k deficit cancer deaths relative to baseline since the beginning of the pandemic by spring 2021, which recovers all the way to baseline by late 2021 and reaches a maximum of ~2k excess cancer deaths by early 2022, after which it starts to decline again. Based on these data and the proposed seasonal/annual linear baseline, there were major deficits of cumulative cancer deaths during the pandemic relative to baseline through Spring 2021, which then recovered and moved into excess territory in early 2022, with about 2k excess (which is <2 days of cancer deaths at the baseline 11.5k weekly rate).
In other words, a lot of this could be reporting artifacts, specifically delays in reporting and changes in screening due to the pandemic could explain a lot of this:
Many oncologists have stated that the delaying of cancer screenings/preventative care during the pandemic could lead to an eventual increase in cancer deaths, with cancers diagnosed later, but at a later and less treatable stage. Indeed this may occur and may be starting to occur, but is not fully apparent yet in these data. Of course, those claiming high excess cancer deaths including @EthicalSkeptic are not considering that factor, but are claiming it is due to another “must not be named factor” starting in Spring 2021. Based on my understanding of carcinogenesis from >25 years of experience in cancer research, even after a major carcinogenic insult, I would not expect it to lead to a high number of excess cancer deaths for many years given the time it typically takes to for cancer to initiate, develop, become advanced, and lead to death even in cases of extreme established carcinogens. In order to advance such a claim for this unnamed factor, one would need to at least have a plausible hypothesis and some evidence for how this factor could produce advanced cancers and deaths so quickly, beyond near-baseless speculation.
Prof. Morris is echoing a point that I’ve made many times. Even in the highly unlikely event that COVID-19 vaccines (or even, as I discussed above, COVID-19 itself) can somehow predispose people to cancer, this increase in cancer incidence would not be expected to manifest itself for several years. Even if the “analysis” (if you can call it that) by TES is epidemiologically appropriate (which is doubtful), it is far more likely that something else accounts for the increase in excess mortality besides COVID-19 vaccines, as much as antivaxxers do what they want to do and find a way to blame vaccines for something bad, particularly in the middle of a pandemic that has already caused so many bad things to happen and is continuing to do so.
There is no such thing as “turbo cancer”
Unsurprisingly, “turbo cancer” isn’t a thing. Oncologists don’t recognize it as a phenomenon, nor do cancer biologists, and if you search for it on PubMed, you won’t find a reference to it. Basically, it’s a clever term coined by antivaxxers to scare you into thinking that COVID-19 vaccines will give you cancer, or at least greatly increase your risk of developing cancer. The “evidence” marshaled to support the concept consists of the usual misinformation techniques used by antivaxxers: citing anecdotes, wild speculation about biological mechanisms without a firm basis in biology, and conflating correlation with causation, no matter how much one must squint to see it.
Unfortunately, “turbo cancer” is also too frightening and pithy of a term to go away any time soon. I expect antivaxxers to be using it for years to come, perhaps for the rest of my life.
122 replies on “There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer””
There are studies (not posting so as not to get delayed through spam. If you haven’t or can’t find them then that says more about you than me.) saying that the spike protein lasts in the Lymph nodes for at least a couple of months post-vaccine. How does that compare with this assertion: “The vaccine only transiently produces the spike protein, which is rapidly externalized. If it weren’t externalized, then it wouldn’t be able to provoke an immune response.” ? Anecdotally I’ve heard of more young people with aggressive cancers lately. Could be the vaccine could be something else – lack of sunlight due to lockdowns, reduced oxytocin due to less human interaction, anxiety from the fear porn; depression and poor lifestyle as a result of the exaggerated pandemic response. Either way I count the health authorities as somewhat responsible for this malaise even if the vaccines aren’t directly responsible. The pushing of the anxiety and fear porn and frankly continued ineffective boosters and masks continually doesn’t arise from health concerns in my view, but greed, desire for control and an inability to let go of the limelight. All of this detracts from health policy credibility.
John, there have been some studies showing persistence of virus in people long after they stop testing positive for covid via standard PCR/ antigen tests. Continued persistence of virus in protected parts of the body worries me way much more than any claims about persistence of spike protein from the vaccine.
“Anecdotally I’ve heard of more young people with aggressive cancers lately. Could be the vaccine could be something else – lack of sunlight due to lockdowns, reduced oxytocin due to less human interaction, anxiety from the fear porn; depression and poor lifestyle as a result of the exaggerated pandemic response”
It could also be that there isn’t an increase in the numbers of young people with aggressive cancers. You might just be hearing more about it because of the places you are looking and the general panic in some areas about the possibility. That’s why actual data, collected nationally and analysed professionally, should be used to determine if there IS an increase and if the increase is real or a reporting issue.
One link does not delay, post link one by one.
Do you know that the purpose of lymph nodes is claer blood of antigens and present them to immune system ? t i, r
Link would explain this,`that is why you would not post it, right ?
Yes, I expect that if he really had studies he would post them. At least one.
Germinal centres, which are found in lymphatic tissues such as lymph nodes, are where somatic hypermutation of B cells, a process that is key to affinity maturation of antibodies, takes place. GCs retain “samples” of antigens for a long time. It is known to be several weeks and there is some evidence it may actually be several months. This is normal for all antigens, not just those produced in response to vaccination. It is no surprise whatever that spike protein, or more likely peptides of spike that had been put up by MHC on transfected cells, would be around for weeks. This is NOT protein continuing to be translated from vaccine mRNA.
LEARN SOME BASICS! Were you good at law? You certainly aren’t at biology. Was wild speculation allowable in courts?
All I said was that the antigen persists for months. I did not make a judgment about whether that was the culprit. Indeed I avoided that. As for speculation; it’s not evidence. The evidence is – we had a public health reaction to covid that pushed 1) lockdowns of various degrees 2) masking 3) relatively new vaccines on people. This public health advise was relatively unprecedented in recent memory and now we have an excess mortality trend based on all data we know about, particularly in heavily vaccinated countries. Correlation is not causation but it is inconclusive evidence of causation. The evidence stands for that the advised public health interventions resulted in an uptick in excess mortality.
For the public, this gives reason to take pause on most of its advice. There are lots of examples of public health regulators (and its partnership with Pharma) failing the public. The FDA with opioids. The FDA with the carb ridden food pyramid (big sugar) that doesn’t match most other developed countries. There are plenty more.
Point is never ever take the public health establishment’s word for anything. It is deeply corrupt and conflicted about every piece of advice it puts out.
The USDA (not FDA) food pyramid was discontinued in 2005, and was never a big influence. It explicitly limited sugar. The emphasis was whole grains. There is no such thing as big sugar. The majority of sweeteners/sugars in the US are corn-based, and are a byproduct of the meat industry.
Pyramids aside, the USDA has constantly supported meat by means of subsidies and education programs, as well as supporting just about everything else the same way.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s never trust anyone with profit driven motives, and that includes anyone selling you supplements and quack cures.
Sorry you’re right. The USDA. The FDA said less than one gram of partially hydrogenated oil is the same as zero grams. Another lie that benefits industry over people.
You very clearly were trying to imply that somehow the vaccine results in production of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein for a prolonged period. If it was not your intent to imply that you are as bad at writing as you are a biology.
How so? That’s not what I said and I left open the possibility that it was consistent with Orac’s assertion.
It is not any kind of evidence of causation (whatever the hell you mean by “inconclusive evidence”). The only things to think about when an unexpected correlation occurs are:
– is there any possible mechanism that could be a causative influence here?
– what hidden variables could be the reason for this?
For anyone who has some understanding of statistics that comment of yours could be written off as a misunderstanding, but given your proclivity for making things like
where you make a blanket assertion without backing it up with anything more than your personal biases, we know the comment isn’t due to misunderstanding: it’s due to simple lack of knowledge
Correlation is always evidence of causation. Look up the word evidence.
Several doctors have gone over mechanisms of blood clots and myocarditis caused by mRNA even the LNPs alone are known to cause problems. Burying your head in the sand doesn’t make it go away.
While I would agree that correlation is suggestive of causation, it is poor evidence of causation. As are a lot of things.
Given the complexity of a pandemic, and prior probability, the argument that masking and lockdowns might have killed people is not stunning.
And even if it were…who cares? We now know that the emphasis on disinfecting surfaces was too high. But it was based on the best evidence available, and the harm done (wasted time and money) is minimal compared to a few million people dying of COVID. It’s all over and done with. We learn, just as we learned from the intense vaccine project.
Jesus john, that is a massively stupid statement. No, correlation is not always evidence of causation. You have no effing understanding of even basic statistics.
Here john, a list of strong correlations. Very simple spurious correlations, but I’m guessing maybe not simple enough for you to get the point.
Correlation is, at it’s simplest, a mathematical function of two vectors of numbers. It is directly meaningful only in the case where a linear relationship is known to exist between the two vectors: any other kind of relationship — correlation can be calculated, as long as the vectors are the same length, but not indicative of anything.
Your comment about “looking up the definition of evidence” is, given your long history of not being to distinguish between anecdotes and evidence, is just sad.
Well poop: neglected to insert the link in my last response to john. That’s a screwup on his level. Apologies.
https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
Opioids areactually problem greatly worsened by Congress, do you know that ? Congress reduced DEA’s ability inspect drug diversion:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/little-noticed-law-drug-companies-fought-for-how-it-passed-amid-opioid-crisis-what-it-does
Rep Marino was about to become Trump’s drug czar.
Correlation is, in fact, evidence of causation in a strict technical sense – if you have some initial probability p_0 (be it very low, very high, or middling) that A causes B, and then you learn that A and B are correlated, your updated probability p_1 that A causes B should be higher than p_0.
… the thing is, of course, the amount by which you update that probability should not be very much if that’s all you learn.
(And, as usual, in the case of vaccines, there is a lot of evidence against causation, that more than overwhelms the tiny evidence provided by correlations, especially the relatively weak correlations we actually see.)
possibly, but you need some basis for assigning probability: if it’s simply your gut then no, correlation doesn’t indicate anything. If you have an idea for the form of the relationship then correlation is only indicative if the model form is linear: anything else, not at all.
But you’re addressing a different situation than john: his claim was that correlation always gives indication of causation: the only thing that comment supports is evidence of a complete lack of knowledge of basic statistics.
Claiming there are studies and then not posting them is right out of igor’s line of BS. There are two far more likely reasons you don’t have links:
a) There are no studies, just other clowns posting asinine conspiracies and spouting 3rd person anecdotes in support
b) There are studies remotely related to what you say, but the results don’t support your comment
I made no claim based on that study other than what the study says – the spike remains in the lymph for some time. I merely asked a question for clarification of whether it squares with what Orac wrote – it very well might.
Actually, link you misssed is this:
Röltgen K, Nielsen SCA, Silva O, Younes SF, Zaslavsky M, Costales C, Yang F, Wirz OF, Solis D, Hoh RA, Wang A, Arunachalam PS, Colburg D, Zhao S, Haraguchi E, Lee AS, Shah MM, Manohar M, Chang I, Gao F, Mallajosyula V, Li C, Liu J, Shoura MJ, Sindher SB, Parsons E, Dashdorj NJ, Dashdorj ND, Monroe R, Serrano GE, Beach TG, Chinthrajah RS, Charville GW, Wilbur JL, Wohlstadter JN, Davis MM, Pulendran B, Troxell ML, Sigal GB, Natkunam Y, Pinsky BA, Nadeau KC, Boyd SD. Immune imprinting, breadth of variant recognition, and germinal center response in human SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination. Cell. 2022 Mar 17;185(6):1025-1040.e14. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.01.018. Epub 2022 Jan 25. PMID: 35148837; PMCID: PMC8786601.
“In contrast to disrupted germinal centers (GCs) in lymph nodes during infection, mRNA vaccination stimulates robust GCs containing vaccine mRNA and spike antigen up to 8 weeks postvaccination in some cases. ”
Here we have 8 weeks, though with specifier “in some cases”
You would notice thatt natural immunity works quite bad iin this case
@johnlabarge
Not really. It simply says that some knowledge in an area is needed in order to give intelligent critiques of published science, that you don’t have any, and so your comments are simply wrong at best and intentionally dishonest at worst.
Reading is not your strong suit. I didn’t give a critique of ‘published science’. I asked a question about ‘published science’ and how it relates to the post here.
It appears that LaBilge is expecting everyone not to notice that he could have provided the titles and not wound up in the mod queue.
That makes the assumption that LaBarge can read the titles of the studies, rather than copying and pasting from Telegram, Parler or Substack.
Worth a google fella. Worth a google.
Still too lazy to do the work to support your own point eh?
As has been explained around here many times by many people, it is essential in science that people interested in what some source has to say have sufficient information so that they can be certain they are looking at the same original source as the person stating that the source makes particular claims. If is very, very far from rare for people to misrepresent what a source says, either through lack of understanding of the material or through willful misconduct. The Labarges of the world are notorious for both failures. “Google it” is simply inadequate and shows a lack of understanding that goes beyond the material itself.
Everyone around here has seen enough to recognize JAQing off when they see it. It too is far, far from rare as a post hoc claim used to try to wriggle out of an attempt to spread FUD through innuendo.
That’s some serious word salad…
No, bilgewater, you are just dumb as a post.
Thank you very much for your post and for giving us hope, as a cancer specialist, that there will not be an increase of cancers.
A good starting point, bypassing The Ethical Skeptic with his complicated reasoning, is to start with Australia’s mortality data.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provisional-mortality-statistics/latest-release#mortality-by-selected-causes-of-death
Australia shows a 6% increase in cancer deaths in 2022, compared to the baseline.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/provisional-mortality-statistics/latest-release#mortality-by-selected-causes-of-death
Jan-Sep 2022 cancer deaths: 37,810
Jan-Sep 2022 baseline: 35,699
It is my understanding that a 6% increase is unusual. What caused it? We cannot tell easily.
This is an alarm signal.
The UK excess mortality presentation also shows a similar cancer increase.
Orac pointed out, absolutely correctly, that most cancers take years to develop. Even Michel Goldman, whom Orac discussed, has not died yet, so Michel is not a part of cancer mortality statistics. (The Atlantic article and Michel’s self-study coyly omit the likelihood that Michel’s cancer started due to his March/April 2021 Pfizer initial Covid vaccination)
So the time-to-kill, if it is years for most cancers, means that a small current increase may be a small fraction, a small left part of the “bell curve” and we may see much larger increases in the future.
Is the increase a random statistical fluctuation, manifesting itself around the globe?
Are the increases caused by lockdowns? Are they caused by Covid?
Did the vaccine, producing the Covid spike protein with HIV genes embedded in it, that was found to suppress p53, play a role?
Lots of questions and not enough answers.
Your statistical ignorance strikes again igor. Gaussian distributions are not used for modeling rare events, and [I’m willing to guess] aren’t appropriate for anything Orac discusses.
You do realize that real data is never gaussian, right? That the “normal” distribution is simply a mathematical ideal?
We have no idea what is the shape of the future wave of cancers will be. Do not get hung up on the exact definition of “bell shape”. Epidemiogical curves are never perfectly shaped.
The point is that Orac is right and MOST cancers take longer than 1.5 years to develop and kill their victims.
So if we are observing a 6% increase in cancer deaths in 2022, as seen in Australia, this is a SIGN that we are only seeing a small beginning of the trend. The 6% increase is a small minority of cancers that killed their victims without 1.5 years of vaccination – with many more to come and kill their victims after more time elapses and more cancers come to their conclusion.
Remember, even Michel Goldman from Orac’s post has not yet died.
https://www.covid-datascience.com/post/evaluating-claims-of-excess-cancer-deaths-in-the-usa-during-the-pandemic
Orac referred to this analysis by Morris. Read it.
That’s the thing: you do need to be specific in things like this. And, for the record, while there are several distributions that are mound-shaped and symmetric [t distributions being the most common], “bell curve” is reserved for one. I’m guessing that it’s the term you used because it is the only one you know. Your little attempt to cover your butt is nothing more than pathetic.
How does one “number” cancers so as to histogram them low to high?
To be fair to Igor, you could get some kind of distribution of cancers by time between onset and death – a well-defined if hard to measure number, and one where if somehow the covid vaccines did magically cause cancer, we would only be seeing the very smallest of the numbers now.
To come back to reality, of course, there is just no reason to believe covid vaccination does cause cancer so you need actual evidence before you can reject the null hypothesis.
But it’s a coherent-ish concept.
How about you tell us what the age-adjusted rate of cancer deaths in Australia is compared to the baseline, Igor? That is the relevant value to consider before departing off into fantasies.
@Chris, do you have any suggestions of links to look at with any sort of age-adjusted information?
I am not sure why age adjustments are necessary when we deal with a whole-country cancer rate.
Thanks
No books are needed. Old people die more often than young ones, do you know that ? If only old people were vaccinated (as when COVID vaccination started) higher mortality is to be expected:
Start with Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_adjustment
Age adjusment is needed if older people are vaccinated, quite a simple thing.
The Australia excess mortality report pertains to the entire country, vaccinated and unvaccinated alike
@Igor Chudov The claim is vaccines cause cancer. Age ajustment is needed o evaluate this claim. Older people are more probably vaccinated.
You could start with the article you linked to. Allow me to quote from it: “While the number of deaths due to cancer was 4.2% above the baseline average in September, the age standardised rate of 11.8 per 100,000 people was below the baseline average rate of 12.3.”
This is for September, but does suggest, you 6% increase is going to be a nothingburger when corrected for age.
They very much are, because the baselines are often based on the average of the last 5 years. However, the population of Australia is ageing. The median age has increased by more than 1 year since 2015. Older people are more likely to die from cancer*.
*As my epidemiology lecturer impressed on me all those years ago: “If you live long enough, you will die from cancer”.
I wonder how the overworked health systems, filled with COVID patients, effected early detection. Do you have any data on the number of new cancer patients over the past 5 years?
Well as one working at the back end of the cancer journey, if its anecdotes they want, I can say its my experience here at hospice, that there has been no sudden influx of people dying of this ‘turbo cancer’ in the last couple of years, if the pandemic has had any effect on cancer, it was on delayed diagnostics and treatment, a thing the vaccines resolved fairly quickly here.
In fact I’ve only seen one adverse reaction to the vaccine, in the hundreds of patients relatives and so on I’ve interacted with professionally over the past few years since the roll out, a bloke I see when I pick up shifts in the community who suffered guillain barre as a result of a Covid infection who during his rehab was given the vaccine and had some neurological reaction that’s not been fully explained leaving him paralysed and with some intractable neuropathic pain.
Though my anecdotes are more reality based then the AV cult, I’d never use them as proof one way or the other.
So, you have seen one out of “hundreds” who was left paralyzed by the Covid vaccine. That’s actually bad, right?
I know one young guy who died from his J&J. Which was declared to be safe and effective because science was certain about it (and no one could say otherwise).
The guy was in his 20s, autistic and worked at a place employing such people, dismantling old PCs for parts. One day a vaccination van clinic pulled up and they were all told to go get vaccinated. He went with everyone and was promptly dead. Happened around May 20, 2021. No VAERS entry
Also one sudden death 3 months after vaccine, the man collapsed dead while drinking tea with friend.
I heard people “planning their vaccine booster date” because they are unable to work for some time after the boosters.
I’ll take “What are two stories of complete bullshit?” for $1000 Alex.
When I got my vaccines, I spent that entire night barely moving. Of course I attribute that mostly to being asleep, but I guess it could have been the vaccine. Actually I’ve been barely moving at night my whole life so of course it’s vaccines!
I’m with ldw56old. Someone gets vaccinated, drops dead immediately, and it wasn’t reported to VAERS? Not buying it. As for your second story, given that by your own admission, the death happened 3 months after vaccination, where’s your evidence the vaccine was responsible?
I have text messages from the man’s relatives, asking NOT to discuss vaccines with his father when we all meet next time. The messages place his death around end of May, 2021. I checked VAERS for deaths, J&J, my state, around this date and there is no report.
I could not care less if someone does not believe me, I am just sharing what I know and it is up to any person to believe me or not.
For those who do not believe me, I recommend taking more boosters. Take them every two months. They are very effective, and super safe, but immunity is waning so take more of them please.
We don’t — your record of posting obvious lies makes not believing your next post the most logical course of action.
And repeating a 2nd [3rd?] hand anecdote about someone dying immediately after a shot, with that not being reported, simply adds to the safe best that your story is bullshit.
And as another person pointed out: saying “Person X died three months after getting vaccinated so the vaccine killed him” is, even the story of the death is true, so lacking in any evidence linking the death to the vaccination that only a conspiracy monger would make the claim.
The bold portion is the oddest way of saying “what I make up” I’ve ever seen.
“I have text messages from the man’s relatives, asking NOT to discuss vaccines with his father when we all meet next time”
So….the man’s relatives know full well your obsession and would rather you didn’t spout your conspiracy theories to the father because it would upset him and possibly get you punched in the taint?
It would appear that your association with the event is slightly more distant than you imply. Which leads to doubts about your actual level of familiarity about the event. I imagine you’ve filled in the blanks with your own certainties though.
“turbo cancer”. what is this, Super Mario?
@ Igor Chudov
You write: “Did the vaccine, producing the Covid spike protein with HIV genes embedded in it, that was found to suppress p53, play a role?”
NOPE. HIV genes NOT embedde in mRNA spike protein Covid vaccine. mRNA is composed of only four nucleotides, adenine (A), uracil (U), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). An almost infinite sequence of these four can exist. Let’s take an analogy. Our alphabet has 26 letters, CH is composed of two of them. We can have Chester, Christopher, Charles, Arch, Chemistry, Torch, etc. Do you believe that someone came up with name and spelling for Chester from Chemistry? Just because they have three letters in common?
Since there are only four nucleotides and HIV has a large number, finding some short sequence in mRNA vaccine is analogous to find CH in different words. HIV was NOT used to develop the current mRNA Covid vaccines.
And as mentioned by ldw56old you don’t even understand difference in statistical distributions.
Why do you KEEP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF
@Igor Chudov Spike protein does not contain HIV genes. There is a short sequence similarity. Kaposi’s sarcoma is lonked to HIV.
Igor Chudov is very good a making a fool of himself. Why do you keep insisting he stop doing that which may be the onlything at which he excels? That’s just mean!
The whole HIV “thing” in SARS-CoV-2 was thoroughly debunked practically within hours of it first being brought up. The group in India who wrote the first preprint on the matter, along with Luc Montagnier, did thorough jobs of making fools of themselves. Igor won’t let go of it because he has so very little material – and most of the rest of it is equally nonsensical. The group from India withdrew their paper. Poor old Luc westered off (*).
westered off is from The Cockroaches of Stay More
@ doug:
Obviously the ‘hiv in Covid’ is BS BUT hiv is scary so of course alties use the concept to inspire fear. What I’ve observed is that some alties/ anti-vaxxers portray the corona virus as if it were a retrovirus when it isn’t because retroviruses are scarier than regular ones. Their followers don’t know the difference so they get away with this with them.
Take a look at this Nature article. It was written by the Wuhan “bat-woman” Shi Zhengli.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-022-00919-x
It explains that Sars-Cov-2 infects immune cells by mechanism completely distinct from ACE2. It further explains what the mechanism is and how Sars-Cov-2 uses LFA-1 to infect immune cells.
That’s what HIV does. What a coincidence! Strange right?
Why do they do the same thing? Because of HIV genes that fold into a gp120 analog.
The Pradhan article was withdrawn in the oddest manner possible, on a SUNDAY two days after publication.
Why are people so sick this winter? Thank Covid, vaccines, boosters, endless Covid reinfections, and HIV inserts present in all of the above.
I wrote a long explainer of that Nature article last February.
You believe the wrong people!
Igor Chudov know no biology. He writes nonsense.
For the eleventy-third time, there are no HIV “genes” in any of the accepted definitions of “gene” involved.
From the paper:
Ignoring the fact that it most certainly does not bind of ORF7a (here no doubt just an issue with English or a degree of sloppiness, but anyone with relevant basic knowledge see what is wrong), not SARS-CoV-1. Note also the remarks about similarity of ORF7a in SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1. Were people stuffing imagined HIV genes into SARS-CoV-1? Why does the paper make no mention whatsoever of HIV? HIV’s gp120 gene is about 2500 bases long. The claimed similarities between HIV and SARS-CoV-2 are a minute fraction of that.
Why is there no credible virologist anywhere supporting the nonsense that Igor Chudov writes?
Shi Zhengli is ONE of many authors, neither first nor last named.
“Ignoring the fact that it most certainly does not bind of ORF7a”
should be “Ignoring the fact that it most certainly does not bind to ORF7a”
Richard H. Ebright is an American molecular biologist. He is the Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology.[1][2]
Richard Ebright fully supports that Sars-Cov-2 comes from a lab.
I do not like calling lab origin a “lab leak” because it was likely developed intentionally as a pandemic virus.
Think about a credible virologist supporting a theory that virologists created a virus that killed 20 million people to date, and has no intention of stopping.
The amount of cognitive dissonance and conflict with his or her own profession would be incredible.
Yeah, I used to teach at Rutgers back when I was faculty at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, and it’s a goddamned embarrassment to me that I was ever faculty at the same school as him, and he was there when I was there.
Richard Ebright is not a virologist, he works on bacterial transcription.
@ Igor Chudov who knows no biology and writes nonsense
To quote from Wikipedia:
Lots of biologists have called for rigorous investigation, NOT because they have any reason to believe that SARS-CoV-2 originated in a lab but because a rigorous investigation has the potential to lay the sort of drivel you spew to rest once and for all. Many of your type misrepresented what a letter, signed by a number of well-respected biologists, asking for a good investigation implied.
a number of possibilities exist:
The Wikipedia article is simply wrong
Your reading comprehension is so profoundly limited that you don’t even understand simple text.
You are lying and deliberately misrepresenting Ebright’s position.
The latter is by far the most probable based on previous evidence.
Igor Chudov who knows no biology and writes nonsense
@ Igor Chudov who knows no biology and writes nonsense
I should also note that, barring the possibility that your density approaches that of osmium (not a safe assumption), you know full well that I was referring specifically to your nonsense claims about something from HIV having been inserted into the SARS-CoV-2 genome. Find a credible virologist who supports that notion. Don’t continue to dodge and obfuscate.
Igor Chudov knows no biology and writes nonsense
The question was why no virologist supported Igor’s bullshit.
He began a reply with [emphasis mine]
He then stated
Which, as others have noted, is not true.
He goes on
Begins by identifying Ebright as a biologist, states completely false thing as the man’s position, and ends by implying Ebright is a virologist.
That’s some pretty blatant dishonesty Igor, even for you.
If a ‘molecular biologist’ (with no publications in the field of virology or SARS-COV-2/COVID-19) is the closest to a ‘credible virologist’ that Igor can find (while ignoring the parts of Ebright’s theory that conflict with his own beliefs), I think that we have a answer. It’s interesting that Igor questions ‘cognitive dissonance’, while conveniently ignoring his own. And it’s sad that Igor can’t admit that his own (obvious to everyone but himself) confirmation bias…
You could check SARS CoV 2 sequence and tell what HIV genes are there. And where is the reporter gene, needed for splicing.
Not only have “turbo cancer”-promoting M.D.s (including those excuses for pathologists, Ryan Cole and Ute Krueger) not published any papers on their purported findings, I see no evidence that they’ve done poster presentations at conferences (a simpler and quick way of getting out info) or even informal talks at professional society meetings.
Maybe it’s because they’re incredibly busy diagnosing cancers, real or not,* or else they fear being challenged/laughed at by their colleagues.
*Re Cole’s cancer-detecting abilities:
http://idahopress.com/eyeonboise/capsun-investigation-cole-misdiagnosed-patients-with-cancer-was-reckless-with-public-covid-funds/article_3d63b6e6-0e8f-57d8-8251-280aa9952a94.html
One hopes patients whose cases are diagnosed by these “turbo” docs are getting second opinions before definitive treatment.
@ Igor Chudov
On average an HIV virus RNA component is 9749 nucleotides long nucleotides. I repeat, over 9749 nucleotides. So, chance that 10 – 20 in any sequence will be found in other viruses and, of course, in mRNA spike protein covid vaccine is almost certain, given only four possible components, A, U, G, C; but does NOT in any way, shape, or form indicate the short sequence came from HIV, not given how short it is.
I’m sure you won’t understand what I write and/or will ignore it. Just as you claimed UK stopped posting COVID deaths and hospitalizations, which was pointed out with a link that you were wrong.
@Joel A. Harrison, PhD, MPH
I never claimed any such thing!
I said that they stopped publishing statistics about deaths and hospitalizations BY VACCINATION STATUS.
Which is true — the last update of that information was UKHSA report Week 13 of 2022. The data was too embarrassing, showing that boosted people had several times MORE infections per 100,000 than unvaccinated people.
The UKHSA was asked to stop publication so as the campaign to give MORE BOOSTERS could proceed. They hid their sad state of affairs from the British people, in order to prevent doubts about efficacy of COVID vaccine.
This is already proving to be a health disaster, with hospitals overwhelmed by sick people.
I am so very sorry about the boosted people of the UK.
But it will get far worse. COVID is only beginning.
Many rat experiments with experimental substances end up with rats dying. That’s totally normal. The difference now is that we have two billion people under the COVID and Covid vaccine experiment, not two dozen rats.
The dying is well underway now, with excess mortality already at 15% in the so called developed countries.
“This is already proving to be a health disaster, with hospitals overwhelmed by sick people”
That’s generally what the NHS has to put up with anyway, being chronically underfunded and understaffed and now playing catchup after the recent ‘disruption’. Having actually been to my local hospital in the UK a couple of times in the last month or so, interestingly enough, the hospital wasn’t anywhere near as obsessive about covid as they were a year ago.
Talking shite as usual Igor.
Although I’ve heard a few reports of aggressive “turbo” cancer in my travels lately, reports of sudden cardiac arrest deaths while playing football** or other sports are much more common.
** both types of football
Orac writes,
“Unsurprisingly, ‘turbo cancer’ isn’t a thing.”
MJD says,
Adding something real and positive, psilocybin-assisted therapy (i.e., natural medicine) can help cancer patients psychologically. See the ‘Cancer’ section in the review article below:
https://www.sciencexcel.com/article/psilocybin-based-breakthroughs-natural-medicine
What does that have to do with so-called “turbo cancer”?
What does anything MJD writes have to do with the topic at hand?
He turns up to do 2 things. To promote his latest paid for publication pretend paper – this one is an expensive piece of vanity at $900. And to gripe about being in auto-moderation.
I read one of his papers once. It was truly awful. Poorly structured, hard to follow and mostly full of pointless JAQ. I don’t think you should expect any different from MJD.
Chris Preston writes,
“I read one of his papers once. It was truly awful. Poorly structured, hard to follow and mostly full of pointless JAQ.”
MJD says,
Can you please supply the reference? Without full disclosure your criticism lacks validity, Chris Preston.
@ Orac,
My reason for citing “Psilocybin-Based Breakthroughs in Natural Medicine” is to promote a symbiotic relationship between conventional medicine and alternative medicine. Thanks for your cancer reviews here at RI.
You really need to learn to quit when you’re behind.
Poorly structured, hard to follow and mostly full of pointless JAQ.”
Given your shitty posts here mjd, that comment about your ‘formal’ writing is quite believable, and probably applies to every single one of your vanity published crap articles.
You know what they call alternative medicine that works?
Psilocybin therapy is highly questionable, but it’s at least plausible because it’s a DRUG. Subjecting your brain to that is the opposite of working in harmony with nature.
When was the last time that you’ve had a couple grams of Psilocybe spp., Doucheniak?
@ Igor Chudov
You write: “It explains that Sars-Cov-2 infects immune cells by mechanism completely distinct from ACE2. It further explains what the mechanism is and how Sars-Cov-2 uses LFA-1 to infect immune cells. That’s what HIV does. What a coincidence! Strange right?”
NOT STRANGE.
“This review focuses on the diseases from various etiologies (genetic, bacterial, viral, neoplastic, allergic, and autoimmune) that are associated
to lymphocyte function-associated antigen-1 with a tremendous impact on human and animal health.”
Zecchinon L et al. (2006). LFA-1 and associated diseases: The dark side of a receptor. Clinical and Applied Immunology Reviews; 6: 201-261.
You automatically assume that if a receptor allows in SARS and HIV it proves the two are related. In reality, the receptor allows in a number of completely unrelated microbes. I guess if you read over a few years that two separate burglars had broken into some stores backdoor then they must be related?
And the article you link to states: “We next prove that SARS-CoV-2 infects T lymphocytes, preferably activated CD4 + T cells in vitro.” And the fact they found SARS in t-cells says NADA because it could just mean that t-cells were doing their job, that is, attacking the virus.
Shen XR et al. (2022 Mar 11). ACE2-independent infection of T lymphocytes by SARS-CoV-2. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy; 7
I guess you don’t understand that many in vitro studies don’t pan out in vivo. Putting cells in a petri dish and infecting them ignores how cells function as part of a living organism.
YOU ARE SO RIGIDLY BIASED AND SO IGNORANT OF HOW SCIENCE WORKS THAT YOU JUST KEEP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF
Igor Chudov know no biology.
Igor doesn’t understand that there is not an infinite variety of potential binding compounds on the surface of host cells or that there is a vast array of viruses and in consequence it isn’t surprising to find multiple viruses using the same binding site on host cells. As just one example, sialic acid is a binding site for many viruses, such influenza, parainfluenza, mumps, some coronas, noro, and rota.
Igor Chudov know no biology. Igor Chudov writes nonsense.
@ Igor Chudov
You refer to Wuhan “bat woman” Shi Zhengli
I guess you miss this: “Shi Zhengli is a Chinese virologist who researches SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origin. Shi directs the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). In 2017, Shi and her colleague Cui Jie discovered that the SARS coronavirus likely originated in a population of cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan. She came to prominence in the popular press as “Batwoman” during the COVID-19 pandemic for her work with bat coronaviruses.” Wikipedia. She Zhengli
So, now you refer to someone who contradicts your belief the virus was created at a Wuhan lab. So, when she writes something you agree with, great, when she doesn’t agree with you??? So, do you think she is a very competent and honest scientist or not?
I have several times done a search of National Library of Medicine’s online database PubMed and couldn’t find one peer-reviewed research article with your name on it. Of oourse, given you have over and over displayed ignorance of microbiology, immunology, epidemiology, history and current status of vaccine-prevented infectious diseases, and even statistics (don’t understand choice of statistics based, among other things, on distribution of data), you just KEEP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF
While following leads of the now debunked reports of “turbo-cancer”, investigators discovered signs of a far more insidious nature. Following the introduction of vaccines for COVID-19 there was an alarming increase of anti-vaxx sentiments by people with no prior history of this behavior. They spout anti-vaxx talking points to everyone who will (or won’t) pay attention to them and in some sad cases will continue doing so when placed in isolation with no one else in view.
Scientists are provisionally calling it turbo-DK syndrome. A syndrome that usually takes from 2 to 10 years to develop, typically in response to an assault to their self-image by an excess dose of reality, is now developing almost overnight in response to public health measures.
This was an unexpected consequence of vaccination programs, masking and other public health measures. More people than ever, with no background in any relevant field, expound on the danger of vaccines on social media, in public and in the political arena. Friends and family of sufferers are dismayed by the sudden onset of DK syndrome. Social and political strife has accelerated and no explanation or cure is in sight.
“Turbo-DK syndrome has reached epidemic proportions,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci. “If we don’t act soon it could become endemic and threaten the health and safety of everyone.” But with no certainty of a vaccine or treatment there is growing momentum to isolate sufferers or to at least humor them until the education system can catch up by inoculating the next generation. The near term outlook is dire.
Here’s Ebright explaining the “lab origin” hypothesis. Note how he is avoiding using a term “lab leak” – because it probably was not an accidental “leak”.
https://twitter.com/R_H_Ebright/status/1567312614002425856
Unfortunately, Wikipedia can be trusted on astronomy or nuclear physics, but not on the matters of Covid. It is very regrettable.
I love science. I used to love Wikipedia.
Igor Chudov knows no biology. Igor Chudov writes nonsense.
Igor Chudov very clearly lacks even the beginnings of knowledge sufficient to evaluate whether articles related to biology on Wikipedia are accurate.
I’ve heard highly credible professors of virology discussing Wikipedia articles and stating very clearly that the articles they have seen on the topic are good and accurate.
But Igor Chudov knows no biology. Igor Chudov writes nonsense. Igor Chudov doesn’t even begin to understand science.
Citing a couple of posts on Twaddle with supporting replies from the likes of Denis Rancourt, an igorit (the usual “i word” now being banned hereabouts) of some note, results in laughter.
Igor Chudov knows no biology. Igor Chudov writes nonsense.
There is more than a little irony in the fact that Igor Chudov, who knows no biology, disparages Wikipedia after having started a thread by using a quotation (would anyone familiar with Chudov expect otherwise?) copied and pasted therefrom.
Igor Chudov writes nonsense.
I accidentally edited out an important bit; correct version below:
There is more than a little irony in the fact that Igor Chudov, who knows no biology, disparages Wikipedia after having started a thread by using a quotation, unattributed, (would anyone familiar with Chudov expect otherwise?) copied and pasted therefrom.
Igor Chudov writes nonsense.
As pointed out before, you don’t love science. You love quackery and misrepresenting results.
I used to love Wikipedia.
So you’re telling us that as soon as Wikipedia started posting real science that show your views to be bullshit you stopped liking it? What a surprise.
Turbo-DK! I’ve seen it!
In related news…
whilst NBC reports on a new highly contagious variant, it appears that anti-vaxxers are working overtime to eliminate vaccine mandates, masks and other PH measures as they prepare for a new year
— RFK’s CHD is partnering with an antivax teachers’ group and will rally at NY’s statehouse to oppose any vaccine mandates for school, college or work ( see prn.live today, CHD)
— Del’s ICAN ( The Highwire, yesterday) discussed his new bestie in the Senate who will investigate Fauci, vaccines and PH, and represent a woman ( Del’s guest) who blames her lymphoma on a Moderna trial and her son’s autism on MMR. Expect many lawsuits/ FOIAs for vaccine injury/ vaccine dictators. Del predicts that his side will increase and will be the majority
this year. He invites contributions to achieve his goal and pay for Siri et al.
@ Igor Chudov
First, “Ebright has stated that the genome and properties of SARS-CoV-2 provide no basis to conclude the virus was engineered as a bioweapon, but he also has stated that the possibility that the virus entered humans through a laboratory accident cannot be dismissed and has called for a thorough investigation of the origin of the pandemic and for measures to reduce the risk of future pandemics.” Wikipedia. Richard H. Ebright.
So, you don’t trust Wikipedia; but the article includes numerous references and I checked out the ones to the above quote from Wikipedia. As for Twitter, short paragraphs in Twitter often lack nuance, so he wrote: “makes lab spillover more likely than natural spillover.” I realize you are too stupid to understand that “more likely” isn’t proof of anything and also he is one person as opposed to many more who disagree with him; but, of course, since he confirms your rigid ignorant bias, you cite him as if that proves anything. I learned to look at all the evidence and I have the knowledge of immunology, microbiology, etc. to be able to follow the evidence.
Between 2002 and 2003 the SARS virus involved 8,469 cases with 11% deaths. From 2012 MERS virus involved up to now about 2,500 cases with about 35% deaths. The current SARS-CoV-2 has had more than 659 million cases with 6.68 million deaths, thus a 1% death rate. And, I assume you understand that the overwhelming majority of deaths was in senior citizens and/or people with severe comorbidities. Same in US with 100,706,571 confirmed cases and 1,092,456 deaths. Thus, also around 1% death rate.
The genomes for the SARS and the MERS viruses were sequenced early on. So, if China wanted to cause a deadly pandemic, why didn’t they take either SARS or MERS and combine it with a much more transmissible corona virus, something they were, much as we are, quite capable of doing? And, from the current COVID-19 China has suffered many deaths, then went into lockdown, lifted lockdown and is suffering a number of deaths.
So, yep, with the World Wide Web one can always find someone or blog who confirms whatever one chooses to believe; but the overwhelming evidence, which includes sequencing of the current COVID-19 genome and comparing it to literally thousands of corona viruses in bats has, according to experts around the world, found the current COVID-19 to only involve a few additional mutations of any of many coronaviruses found in bats and some animals. So, yep, you want to believe it came from a Wuhan lab and you even want to believe it was intentionally made deadly; but it isn’t that deadly. Deadlier than average flu virus; but that is also because we have a flu vaccine which protects a significant proportion of population.
However, even if one could, probability extremely low, believe it leaked BY ACCIDENT from Wuhan lab, the overwhelming majority of deaths in US could have been avoided if we had taken appropriate measures early on. For instance, one local church refused to even require masks, didn’t push vaccines, etc. and they had a high number of cases.
I realize that nothing I write, nor Orac writes, nor anyone else will change your SICK MIND. So, KEEP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSELF. SEARCH THE WEB AND FIND POSTS THAT CONFIRM YOU UNSCIENTIFIC, IGNORANT KNOWLEDGE OF IMMUNOLOGY, MICROBIOLOGY, VIROLOGY, EPIDEMIOLOGY, AND HISTORY AND CURRENT STATUS OF VACCINE-PREVENTABLE DEATHS.
YEP, CONTINUE TO FIND A POST AMONG THOUSANDS THAT CONFIRMS YOUR IGNORANCE, BIAS, AND STUPIDITY.
[…] There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer” […]
I think people would be more open to your writings if you did not use terms you have been taught by media (anti vax, misinformation) and rather argued why more caution is unnecessary. Whenever writers call large groups of people names it immediately discredits their opinions. Those asking for caution and more transparency based on their personal life experiences and the sheer numbers of injected people falling ill with a host of sudden ailments are not calling you names, they are simply asking for independent studies not funded by those invested in vaccines. They are simply asking to look into the financial corruption leading the charge that has put this country on course to self destruct over the past 2 years. Stop calling people names and give vaccine injury a courageous and honest investigation. If you don’t you are simply a propaganda artist.
There’s nothing like tone policing to welcome in the New Year!
Here’s a hint: Tone policing is a way for people promoting misinformation to attack critics on the basis of not being “nice enough,” all while those same people accuse people like me of being pharma shills, uncaring, and even worse (e.g., groomers). Heck, you yourself have done the same thing, calling me a propagandist and implying that I’m a pharma shill.
Sorry, but I just don’t care that a brand new commenter using a first name only (like you) on this blog is unhappy about my tone. I wasn’t going to convince you anyway, no matter how polite and “civil” I was. I can tell just by your language and framing.
I am with Orac here. Rudeness is a part of being on the Internet. One needs thick skin to post controversial messages.
Igor Chudov knows no biology. Igor Chudov writes nonsense. Igor Chudov is thick.
I love you
Think skin is needed anywhere you make controversial statements.
You, Igor, continue to post things that are flatly not true or that intentionally [we can only assume, since you do it so often] misrepresent things scientists have said. Continued dishonesty from folks like you is not the same as things that are simply controversial.
I am posting things that are 100% true. We are living through the beginning of a COVID calamity.
New York City had the most draconian vaccine mandate and is almost 100% vaccinated. It has been beset with Covid nonstop and is currently going through its seventh wave of infection, this time caused by a variant called XBB.1.5.
As of today COVID hospitalizations in NY are at their highest since last February. (1) Hospitalizations are still going up.
This is despite the CDC changing the definition of “Covid hospitalization” in March. (2)
XBB 1.5 is nasty and bypasses “vaccinated immunity”. It also has high ACE2 binding affinity and loves infecting lungs and the cardiovascular system.
Covid, aided by vaccines causing immune tolerance, will claim many more lives than it claimed to date, through endless reinfections.
References which you can search and find:
(1) New York State Daily Hospitalization Summary
(2) State and hospitals don’t see eye to eye on counting COVID hospitalizations
That is a tremendous load of bullshit. Your assertions about the “dangers” of the covid vaccine are completely unsupportable.
I am amazed at the level of cognitive dissonance you clowns display.
@Igor Chudov Actully New York vaccination rate is 78%
https://usafacts.org/visualizations/covid-vaccine-tracker-states/state/new-york
Vaccines do not cause “immune tolerance”. Immune tolerance is tolerance of self proteins, entirely different thing. (Self proteins are presented to immune system, and immune cells active against them are removed)
Bivalent vaccines work against omicron variants:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.17.516898v1.abstract
US COVID deaths are here:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
No winter peak yet.
“…they are simply asking for independent studies not funded by those invested in vaccines”
By “invested in vaccines”, Jules appears to be singling out not only pharma-funded studies, but also those financed by foundations and public money. Evidently he’d only accept studies financed by antivaxers and groups who support them. Given the high percentage of such “research” that’s been retracted or otherwise debunked for poor methodology, errors and outright fraud, that’s a lousy basis on which to evaluate vaccines.
A recent review found that 58% of clinical trials of therapeutics and vaccines for Covid-19 were publicly funded. The percentage was lower for vaccine trials, but that still leaves 105 such trials that were publicly funded.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2795180
Jules will surely dismiss those clinical trials because the vast majority of health professionals conducting those trials undoubtedly are “invested in vaccines” (i.e. recognize that immunization has been a valuable tool in disease prevention and mitigation).
Too bad.
“terms you have been taught by media (anti vax, misinformation)”
Oops. I guess I never knew what ‘misinformation’ meant until I heard it on tv.
Anyone who thinks “misinformation” and “antivax” are terms recently coined, and, to boot, coming from popular media and not scientific writers, is so far out of the loop as to be orbiting something in another galaxy.
Canadian Tim Caulfield who has been writing to dispel disinformation and antivax nonsense for some years, though not, as far as I know as long as our esteemed host, has just been appointed to the Order of Canada “for his contributions to health law, policy and ethics, and for his efforts to counter misinformation” – see CBC article Misinformation is killing people’: A Q&A with misinformation expert Timothy Caulfield
@ Jules
You write: “they are simply asking for independent studies not funded by those invested in vaccines. They are simply asking to look into the financial corruption leading the charge that has put this country on course to self destruct over the past 2 years. Stop calling people names and give vaccine injury a courageous and honest investigation.”
First, there have been numerous independent studies not funded by industry, studies carried out in many different nations. Second, the overwhelming consensus among infectious disease scientists, etc. is that had we implemented a consistent strategy, for instance, lockdowns only where cases of covid were, otherwise masking, physical distancing, etc. we could have saved 100s of thousands of lives. As for vaccine injuries, they are investigated, not only in the US; but around the world. Yep, they are real; but extremely rare and numerous studies have found that the mRNA vaccines have saved countless lives. And even the rare vaccine injuries; e.g., myocarditis, occur at much much higher rates in those infected with the actual COVID virus.
Tell us, do you understand immunology? Do you understand mRNA? Orac has a PhD in cell physiology, which includes mRNA. Besides parroting antivax websites, antivax politicians, etc. have you actually delved into vaccine science, etc?
Happy New Year?
A brief scan of news informs me that three cities in NJ are re-instating mask mandates for school children this coming week ( The Gothamist, nj.com, NJ101.5 ) because rates of positivity for Covid have risen over the past month. Unfortunately, these districts have many disadvantaged kids.
I’m sure that anti-vaxxers will go fucking crazy as usual and oppose any reasonable measures taken by PH. Attorneys at CHD, ICAN and prn will have lots to bill.
Similar suggestions in general for people in Los Angeles County.
“The vaccine only transiently produces the spike protein …”
Except that’s false. And that changes everything.
The spike protein can only be considered transient during SARS-CoV-2 infection, as it clears the body after about 3 days. After vaccination is when it persists. The evidence is already there proving that DNA damage repair is inhibited by the spike protein. That much is not up for argument. So the whole basis for you saying that the mRNA vaccines are not capable of causing rapidly growing cancer relies on only one thing:
For the spike proteins to NOT persist in the body for longer than it would after a natural infection.
Prove that.
Also, does anyone know what happened with Masitinib?
It acts as a competitive inhibitor of 3CLpro & was proven to result in a >200-fold reduction in SARS-CoV-2 viral titers in the lungs and nose, as well as reduced lung inflammation.
Unfortunately, phase 2 trials were put on hold earlier this year prior to the bivalent boosters being released, supposedly due to a “POTENTIAL risk of ischemic heart disease”. How ironic, given that SARS-CoV-2 is PROVEN to result in ischemic heart disease.
But we can’t have anything compromising vaccine uptake, can we.
Ironically in September, after the booster campaign had begun, Masitinib trials were given the green light again. I guess the same thing will happen to it as it did Ivermectin & now with the vaccinated highly susceptible to their spawn; the XBB.1.5 variant, many more will die needlessly.
Citation needed.
<
blockquote>“The vaccine only transiently produces the spike protein …”
Except that’s false. And that changes everything./blockquote>YOU prove that it is false. YOU put up citations to credible evidence.
You have previously proven, many times, that you don’t understand any of this.
I note you conveniently left out the fact that reduction was in mice.
4-[(4-Methylpiperazin-1-yl)methyl]-N-(4-methyl-3-{[4-(pyridin-3-yl)-1,3-thiazol-2-yl]amino}phenyl)benzamide is a protease inhibitor. Do you have any idea at all what that is and WHY it would potentially inhibit SARS-CoV-2 replication? Paxlovid is a very successful inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2’s main protease.
““POTENTIAL risk of ischemic heart disease”. How ironic, given that SARS-CoV-2 is PROVEN to result in ischemic heart disease”
So, tested, found to have potential risks. Trial halted while, presumably, risks are analysed and risk/benefit looked at. Exactly what should be happening but you spin it into something other. You can’t really lose can you? Either it’s tested adequately (blocked in favour of vaccines in your eyes) or its not tested adequately (typical pharma profit mongering in your eyes). Conveniently, it’s not possible for any possible progress to be good.
Such a skewed view of reality that I’m surprised your view isn’t obstructed by your own arse.
Oh Jeebus H Christ here we go with goddamn ivermectin again
The claim that spike protein lasts only three days in the body after Covid-19 infection is false. It’s been detected up to a year following infection.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.06.14.22276401v1
Massive spike protein production at multiple sites in the body due to large-scale viral replication is a feature of disease, not vaccination.
Turbo-ignorance on the part of antivaxers is a difficult-to-treat malady. Ivermectin won’t help.
If SARS CoV 2 antigens are really cleared from body inside 3 days, there would be no immunity. Mounting an immune defense takes weeks, and to do this an anien must be present. An RN does not know that ?
Clinicaltrials.gov has 2 recruiting masinatib trials. You give citations,really.
@ cochristi
I already refuted your claim of the S-Spike Protein time in body. Just a quick review. First, the mRNA Covid S-Spike protein is NOT same as natural version. It has a couple of amino acids changes so it cannot change its configuration, that is, fold to both attach and make hole to allow nucleic acids to enter cells. Second, it is recognized by bodies own immune cells, B-cells and T-cells, which attack it just as they attack any foreign invader.
And you, in your immense bias and ignorance, ignore multiple studies performed around the world that have found mRNA vaccines to significantly prevent hospitalizations and deaths with rare serious adverse events. As for future boosters, big deal. I would much rather get a sore arm and mild fever for a day or so every few months than end up hospitalized and possibly dead.
No matter how many times what Orac writes, my comments, etc. you just ignore them and come up with something else that displays your rigid unscientific bias. As for Masitinib, you write: “Ironically in September, after the booster campaign had begun, Masitinib trials were given the green light again. I guess the same thing will happen to it as it did Ivermectin & now with the vaccinated highly susceptible to their spawn; the XBB.1.5 variant, many more will die needlessly.”
First, ivermectin is not recommended based on substantial research. https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/miscellaneous-drugs/ivermectin/
Second, despite what your biased ignorance believes, even if Masitinib and/or ivermectin eventually are found to work sometimes, preventing a disease by vaccination is much smarter than getting it, suffering, and getting a treatment that may not always work.
I guess you would prefer getting cervical cancer rather than HPB vaccine? After all, there are treatments for cervical cancer.
@ cochristi
While in your immense biased ignorance you reject vaccines, overwhelming evidence, both for current mRNA covid vaccines and entire history of vaccine-preventable disease give overwhelming evidence of how effective vaccines are. In fact, a number of medical historians believe vaccines are major contributor to increased average life-expectancy. However, vaccines aren’t always 100% effective for various reasons, either some peoples immune systems just don’t respond or some people can’t be vaccinated; e.g., autoimmune disease, undergoing chemotherapy, too young, etc. So, I hope Masitinib or other treatments will be available for those who couldn’t be protected by vaccines. I don’t live in the black and white world you live in; but in the real world where vaccines confer protection on many people; but those not protected hopefully, though they will unfortunately suffer from a disease, can be successfully treated.
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