Study did not find link between Covid-19 mRNA vaccines and cancer
Study did not find link between Covid-19 mRNA vaccines and cancer
(AFP) - An article shared thousands of times on social media claims a study from a renowned US cancer center found that Covid-19 mRNA vaccines could be linked to cancer. But the researchers did not examine such vaccines, and the article falsely portrays the actual findings of the study, the center and medical experts say.
“MEDICAL SHOCKER: Scientists at Sloan Kettering discover mRNA inactivates tumor-suppressing proteins, meaning it can promote cancer,” reads the headline of a March 2, 2021 article.
The article calls on “independent laboratories” to test Covid-19 vaccines “and find out if these are cancer-driving inoculations that, once the series is complete, will cause cancer tumors in the vaccinated masses.”
It was published on Natural News, a website known for pushing false claims that was banned from Facebook in 2019 and now uses alternative URLs to evade detection. AFP Fact Check has already debunked several of its claims, including about vaccine ingredients and the flu vaccine.
The bottom of the article includes a link to a 2018 announcement from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center about the study.
Jeanne D’Agostino, a spokeswoman for the cancer center, told AFP in an email that “this article circulating is categorically false, misrepresents the findings of our study and draws incorrect conclusions about vaccine risks.”
The Sloan Kettering announcement said researchers found “that changes in an information-carrying molecule called messenger RNA can inactivate tumor-suppressing proteins and thereby promote cancer. The findings pinpoint previously unknown drivers of the disease.”
In an update, it emphasized “that mRNAs are a normal component of all cells and the specific ones discussed here are not involved in mRNA-based vaccines, like the one developed against SARS-CoV-2,” the virus that causes the Covid-19 disease.
More than seven percent of Canadians have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, while 116 million total doses have been administered in the United States.
Several Covid-19 vaccines are being administered or are in trials around the world. In December, the Pfizer-BioNTech shot using mRNA technology was authorized in the United States and Canada, followed by Moderna’s mRNA vaccine.
The mRNA shots are the first to use the cutting-edge messenger ribonucleic acid technology, which differs from that of regular vaccines. Instead of confronting the immune system with part of a virus in a weakened or deactivated form to build antibodies, it introduces a “blueprint” of the spike protein, part of the virus that the body can then recognize and fight if it encounters it later.
Medical experts confirmed that the study -- which was published in Nature in August 2018, more than a year before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic -- had nothing to do with mRNA vaccines developed to protect against the disease.
