Songboh - Mass COVID-19 vaccination is a deadly and unscientific policy that will cause surge in cancer rates, warns pathologist

[Bigbird]

 

Mass COVID-19 vaccination is a deadly and unscientific policy that will cause surge in cancer rates, warns pathologist

05/09/2022 / By Arsenio Toledo

 

America’s mass Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination programs are poor and unscientific policy decisions that will lead to surges in cancer rates among the vaccinated.

This is according to Dr. Ryan Cole, a board-certified and expert pathologist trained at the Mayo Clinic. Cole was among the first physicians in the United States to openly warn about how the COVID-19 vaccines may be associated with serious health risks, such as an elevated risk of developing cancer, which he observed in his patients. (Related: COVID-19 mass vaccination programs violate bioethics principles.)

During an interview with journalist Veronika Kyrylenko of the New American, Cole said the mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines suppresses the immune system and “all sorts of cell cycle pathways.”

Cole explained that cells have “little pattern receptors” that are responsible for communicating with the immune system. The mRNA in COVID-19 vaccines downregulates these cells – meaning the number of surface receptors they have decreases.

When more and more of a vaccinated person’s cells experience downregulation due to the mRNA in the COVID-19 vaccines, their risk of cancer spikes upward.

“A couple of these downregulated receptors are responsible for keeping cancer in check,” said Cole.

This is just one way the COVID-19 vaccines are responsible for increasing cancer ratesamong the fully vaccinated. Cole further explained that the spike proteins in the COVID-19 vaccines can bind to the body’s genes, including several genes that are related to cancer and tumors

 

For example, when the spike proteins bind to P53 genes, a family of genes known as tumor suppressor genes, a person’s risk of developing cancerous tumors increases. When the spike proteins bind to BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, the risk of women developing breast or ovarian cancer increases.

“So, that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what the spike protein can do,” warned Cole. “The other huge problem is the fact – and this was a study out of [Stanford University] … in the journal Cell – the synthetic mRNA can persist in the body, we know, for at least 60 days. That’s the point at which they stopped their study so they could publish.”

COVID-19 vaccines alter the immune system

At every opportunity that is available to him, Cole speaks out against the COVID-19 vaccines and about how they are responsible for the alarming uptick in cancers that the U.S. is currently experiencing.

“We’re seeing an alteration of the innate immune response,” said Cole. He added that scientists all over America are also witnessing this and that the uptick in these strange immune responses coincides with the rollouts of COVID-19 vaccines.

Some of the strange medical phenomena Cole has witnessed include the appearance of a childhood disease in adults and the uptick in rare cancers.

All of his observations have also been echoed by other physicians, but rigorous studies are not being conducted because of a lack of funding and because mainstream scientific institutions are unwilling to study these phenomena.

“You cannot find that for which you do not look,” he said.

Learn more about the dangers of the COVID-19 vaccines at VaccineInjuryNews.com.

Watch Veronika Kyrylenko’s full interview with Dr. Ryan Cole regarding the COVID-19 vaccines below.

 

https://video.brighteon.com/file/BTBucket-Prod/hls/86aef3cd-813e-489d-97c9-a35d0da6367e.m3u8

 

This video is from the channel The New American on Brighteon.com.

 

https://www.cancer.news/2022-05-09-mass-covid-vaccination-causes-deadly-cancer-surge.html#

[Bigbird]

Volunteers! How like that? 

 

[socrates469bc]

when limpeh saw the trial methologies, limpeh alrdy says no to vaccination liao.

 

limpeh got distinction for stats 301 de, so mai play play.

 

wahahahahahahahaha

[Huat Zai]

Idaho Doctor Makes Baseless Claims About Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines

SciCheck Digest

A viral video features a doctor making dubious claims about COVID-19 vaccines and treatments at a forum hosted by Idaho’s lieutenant governor. Dr. Ryan Cole claims mRNA vaccines cause cancer and autoimmune diseases, but the lead author of the paper on which Cole based that claim told us there is no evidence mRNA vaccines cause those ailments.

 

Full Story

Update, Aug. 27, 2021: The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which was previously authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use, received full approval from the agency on Aug. 23 for people 16 years of age and older.

Update, Feb. 10, 2022: The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine received full approval from the FDA on Jan. 31 for individuals 18 years of age and older. 

More than 565,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S., but two effective mRNA vaccines are now available. Some treatments for certain patients, such as those hospitalized or receiving oxygen, have also been approved or authorized by federal agencies, and they continue to be studied.

Since the pandemic began, however, politicized social media posts have featured doctors, some looking authoritative in white coats, spreading dubious claims about both vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. The most recent example in this misinformation niche is Dr. Ryan Cole, who owns a medical lab in Idaho.

 

Cole is featured in a video that has amassed more than a million views. He makes a variety of claims, some of which we’ve addressed before.

The video was recorded while he spoke at a forum on March 4 hosted by Idaho’s lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, a Republican, and it was posted by a Libertarian organization called the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

McGeachin was featured in an October post by that group, posing with a Bible and a gun in a video that advocated against public health measures related to the pandemic and asked viewers to sign a statement saying that “any order issued in the future will be ignored.”

Cole said in an interview with FactCheck.org that he’s “not affiliated with any political party, group or organization.” According to the Idaho Secretary of State’s office, Cole is registered as a Republican.

In the March 4 video, Cole makes claims suggesting that federal agencies have acted nefariously, as well as claims that undermine vaccines and promise miracle treatments.

We’ll address his four main claims.

• Although there is no evidence to support this, Cole suggested that some of the COVID-19 vaccines could cause cancer or autoimmune diseases.
• Again, without evidence, Cole suggested that the federal government withheld a treatment for COVID-19 in order to “vend” a vaccine.
• Studies haven’t proved that ivermectin is effective in treating COVID-19, but Cole claimed that federal agencies “have suppressed this life-saving medication.”
• Cole said public health officials should encourage people to take vitamin D supplements rather than wear masks or stay physically distant from others.

Vaccine Safety

Two of the COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. use messenger RNA, or mRNA, to train recipients’ immune systems to make antibodies that fight the virus that causes COVID-19. (See SciCheck’s articles on those vaccines: “A Guide to Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine“ and “A Guide to Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 Vaccine.”)

These are the first vaccines using mRNA technology authorized in the U.S., but scientists have been developing and testing mRNA vaccines for years, including in people during clinical trials. Still, misinformation exploiting fears of this new technology has been common online.

To those bogus claims, Cole has now added: “mRNA trials in mammals have led to odd cancers. mRNA trials on mammals have led to autoimmune diseases — not right away, six, nine, 12 months later.”

We asked Cole to provide support for those claims, and he referred us to a 2018 paper published in the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery that reviewed trials and studies of various, earlier mRNA vaccines.

But that paper doesn’t support his statement.

Norbert Pardi, a research assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, was the lead author of the paper. He told us in an email, “No publications demonstrate that mRNA vaccines cause cancer or autoimmune diseases.”

Pardi’s 19-page paper does make one passing reference to autoimmune diseases, which is what Cole highlighted to us.

The paper says: “A possible concern could be that some mRNA-based vaccine platforms induce potent type I interferon responses, which have been associated not only with inflammation but also potentially with autoimmunity. Thus, identification of individuals at an increased risk of autoimmune reactions before mRNA vaccination may allow reasonable precautions to be taken.”

But, Pardi explained, he and the other researchers included that passage because they wanted to note some potential concerns. However, he emphasized that “no scientific evidence has confirmed that these concerns are real.”

It’s also worth noting that the paper predated the COVID-19 pandemic by two years, so it doesn’t include any information specifically about the COVID-19 vaccines.

Simply put, “there is no scientific evidence that shows that mRNA vaccines cause autoimmune diseases,” Pardi said. “Multiple clinical trials have been performed with mRNA vaccines in the past 10 years and none of them found that mRNA vaccination caused autoimmune diseases. Further, we are not aware of any studies showing an autoimmune disease appearing many months after vaccination as Dr. Cole inaccurately suggests.”

Likewise, Dr. Roger Shapiro, associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told us in an email that he was unaware of any study that would support Cole’s claim that the vaccines are carcinogenic.

“There is nothing in the science of mRNA vaccines that would suggest carcinogenicity, and they have been tested in humans for other diseases before COVID-19,” Shapiro said. “mRNA rapidly breaks down in the body, and probably does not last long enough to act as a carcinogen.”

“Regarding autoimmunity,” he said, “this is always a concern with any medical product, but there is no evidence to date suggesting it, and it does not seem any more likely than with other vaccines. mRNA is made all the time in our bodies, and delivering it by vaccine should not be different.”

Dr. Dean Winslow, an infectious disease physician at Stanford Health Care, concurred with the other experts with whom we spoke. In a phone interview, he characterized Cole’s claims about cancer as “fearmongering” and said, “There’s just no scientific basis for that.”

“We’re talking about these very small fragments of messenger RNA that don’t hang around for long at all,” he said, noting that the mRNA vaccines have been in use for almost six months and have been “very safe, very well-tolerated vaccines.”

Winslow recognized that some people are concerned that the mRNA from the vaccine might persist in their bodies and somehow change their genetics or cause long-term effects. So he emphasized that the vaccines have small fragments of RNA, which survive only briefly and carry information about the virus that causes COVID-19.

Similarly, Pardi told us, “COVID-19 mRNA vaccines do not alter our DNA and they get rapidly degraded so they do not promote cancer formation.”

Treatments, Vaccines Can Both Be Approved

Cole also suggested in the video that the federal government had suppressed a treatment for COVID-19 in order to “vend” a vaccine. (We’ll address his claims about the supposed treatment in the next section.)

“If there’s a treatment for a disease, the federal government cannot approve a vaccine by law, by rule,” Cole falsely claimed, suggesting that federal agencies were withholding access to a treatment for COVID-19 so that they could instead profit from vaccines.

“So, the NIH, who, you know, is involved in approving medications, they co-hold the patent on the ‘vaccine’ with Moderna,” Cole said, referring to the National Institutes of Health, an agency that does not approve medications. “If the fox is not guarding the henhouse there, I don’t know who is. That also is insanity to have the government in bed with a private company vending a product that they want to give to everybody.”

There are several problems with this statement.

First, there is no law barring vaccines if treatments are available for a given disease, said Jorge Contreras, a professor in the College of Law at the University of Utah who specializes in intellectual property and genetics and the law. He asked, “Why would there be such a law?”

Clearly there isn’t, Contreras pointed out, since the Food and Drug Administration authorizes a flu vaccine every year while Tamiflu, an antiviral drug used to treat the flu, has been available since the FDA approved it in 1999.

“It’s certainly true that many diseases that we vaccinate for, there is no known cure for,” he said, noting that this is often the case with viral diseases, which are hard to treat.

“But that’s not a legal requirement. That’s a scientific reality,” he said.

As for Cole’s claim about the NIH, that agency conducts and funds research. It doesn’t approve drugs, medical devices or vaccines — that’s a function of the FDA.

The NIH did collaborate with Moderna on the development of its COVID-19 vaccine. As we’ve explained, government researchers had previously been working with scientists at Moderna on an investigational vaccine to protect against MERS, another disease caused by a coronavirus. The team was able to apply that knowledge to design a COVID-19 vaccine.

Since the NIH does research, it also files and receives patents, many of which it licenses to pharmaceutical companies. So, Contreras said, NIH’s patents stemming from research on mRNA vaccines are to be expected, and use of those patents by pharmaceutical companies is also to be expected. Similarly, scientists from government-funded labs sometimes share credit on patents with scientists from privately funded labs. That’s normal, too, Contreras said.

Generally, he explained, there are two reasons that the NIH licenses its patents to companies. First, the NIH is a taxpayer-funded institution, and it can recoup some of its investment in research by lending out the use of its discoveries. Second, the clinical trials required to bring a drug or vaccine to market are risky and expensive, so, theoretically, making its discoveries available to companies can encourage the private sector to take the risk and create products.

So, Cole mischaracterizes the relationship between the NIH and the vaccine manufacturers when he says that it’s a “conflict of interest” to have the “federal government in bed with a vaccine company.”

It’s actually normal to have pharmaceutical companies use government-owned patents.

And he’s wrong when he says of federal agencies, “they don’t want a therapy to work because then they can vend their vaccine.”

There’s nothing that would prohibit the use of vaccines if there were an effective treatment for COVID-19.

Not Enough Data on Ivermectin

Neither the World Health Organization nor the National Institutes of Health has recommended the use of ivermectin — a common anti-parasitic medication — in the treatment of COVID-19.

Merck, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures ivermectin, has similarly noted that there is “[n]o scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies; No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and; A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.”

But Cole claimed in the video that ivermectin is a “treatment” for COVID-19.

He suggested that federal agencies have stifled its use so that they could profit from vaccines, as we explained above.

“We’re in farm country, horse country — you know, you give it to your dogs, your cats, your horses,” Cole said in the video, addressing an audience in Idaho.

Ivermectin is used to treat parasites in animals, but crossover use in humans can be dangerous. While Cole may have only been emphasizing the ubiquity of the drug, not suggesting that people should take veterinary medicine, the FDA has said that patients have been hospitalized after taking ivermectin intended for horses as interest in the drug as treatment for COVID-19 has grown.

Ivermectin does have antiviral properties, but the FDA hasn’t approved it to treat any viral infections. It is being studied with regard to COVID-19, though, according to both the WHO and NIH.

“Treating COVID-19 with Ivermectin is still being evaluated in clinical trials, but at present there is not enough evidence to support its use,” said Shapiro, the Harvard professor. “My understanding is that the inhibitory dose needed for it to work is extremely high and trying to take enough to suppress the virus could lead to other problems.”

The trials so far have “showed no benefit or worsening disease, some showed shorter time to disease resolution or viral clearance, and some did show a possible mortality benefit; but there were problems with most of these trials that include small sample size and different outcome measures and other possible biases,” he said.

Winslow, from Stanford, cautioned that “there have been many claims for miracle cures” over the course of the pandemic and said that ivermectin would need more rigorous study before we know how useful it would be in treating COVID-19.

“Ivermectin truly is a wonder drug for parasitic diseases,” he said, “but my suspicion is that it will be a lot like hydroxychloroquine.”

Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug that was touted by former President Donald Trump as a treatment for COVID-19, although studies found that it wasn’t an effective treatment and may cause serious side effects in some patients, as we’ve explained before.

The problem with drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which are promoted as having broad-spectrum antiviral properties, is that the quantity of inhibitor required to effectively kill off the virus also sickens the host cells, Winslow said.

Even potent versions, like remdesivir, which Winslow referred to as the “gold standard” of specific antiviral therapy in COVID-19 treatments, only accelerates the time to recovery, but doesn’t significantly reduce death rates or mortality from COVID-19. Remdesivir is the only drug approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19; the approval is for patients requiring hospitalization.

So, Cole’s claim that “there is blood on the hands of bureaucrats in Washington who have suppressed this life-saving medication,” is unfounded. Ivermectin hasn’t been proved to be effective.

Overstating Effect of Vitamin D

Another of the major points that Cole emphasized in the video is the role vitamin D could have in fighting COVID-19.

“If you do not supplement with vitamin D in the wintertime, you are immune suppressed. Most insurance companies in Idaho and northern states do not pay for a vitamin D test, unfortunately,” said Cole, whose lab offers several vitamin D tests.

After eschewing public health guidelines that recommend staying six feet apart and wearing masks to slow the spread of the virus, Cole said, “What should public health message number one, two, and three be? Vitamin D, vitamin D, vitamin D.”

It’s true that vitamin D, which is mostly associated with bone health, plays a part in the immune system. But that doesn’t mean it’s a panacea for COVID-19, as we’ve explained before.

While a lot of basic research points to vitamin D having a role in the immune system, it is less clear if these mechanisms are applicable in clinical practice and to what degree they would benefit COVID-19 patients, as we’ve written. Studies assessing whether vitamin D can treat or prevent infectious diseases have generally been inconsistent.

A recent article from NPR looked at the research on vitamin D with respect to COVID-19 over the last year and found, essentially, the same thing. It also noted that some studies have shown that low vitamin D levels are associated with a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 or with becoming seriously ill.

“While these studies raised hopes among some researchers, others are skeptical, noting that most of these are observational studies, not the gold-standard randomized, controlled trials,” the story said.

“Much of the available evidence only shows association — not causation — and even those results are mixed,” Walter Willett, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told NPR.

In September, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an Instagram Live interview that for those who are deficient in vitamin D, “I would not mind recommending, and I do it myself, taking vitamin D supplements.” But, as we wrote before, excessive doses should not be used.

Editor’s note: SciCheck’s COVID-19/Vaccination Project is made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over our editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation. The goal of the project is to increase exposure to accurate information about COVID-19 and vaccines, while decreasing the impact of misinformation.

Sources

Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. Coronavirus Resource Center. Accessed 16 Apr 2021.

Harvard Health Publishing. “Treatments for COVID-19.” Harvard Medical School. Updated 5 Apr 2021.

Fichera, Angelo. FactCheck.org. “Texas Doctor Spreads False Claims About COVID-19 Vaccines.” 26 Mar 2021.

Hale Spencer, Saranac. FactCheck.org. “Video Uses Bogus Claims to Stoke Race-Based Fears of COVID-19 Vaccine.” 2 Feb 2021.

Idaho Secretary of State’s Office. Email to FactCheck.org. 9 Apr 2021.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines.” CDC.gov. Updated 4 Mar 2021.

McDonald, Jessica. FactCheck.org. “A Guide to Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine.” Updated 9 Apr 2021.

McDonald, Jessica. FactCheck.org. “A Guide to Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 Vaccine.” Updated 9 Apr 2021.

Jaramillo, Catalina. FactCheck.org. “No Evidence Vaccines Impact Fertility.” Updated 3 Mar 2021.

Pardi, Norbert, et al. “mRNA vaccines — a new era in vaccinology.” Nature Reviews. 12 Jan 2018.

Pardi, Norbert. Research assistant professor of medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Email exchange with FactCheck.org. 12 Apr 2021.

Shapiro, Roger. Associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University. Emailed responses to FactCheck.org. 8 Apr 2021.

Winslow, Dean. Infectious disease physician, Stanford Health Care. Telephone interview with FactCheck.org. 12 Apr 2021.

Contreras, Jorge. Professor, college of law, University of Utah. Telephone interview with FactCheck.org. 15 Apr 2021.

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. “FDA’s Critical Role in Ensuring Supply of Influenza Vaccine.” FDA.gov. 28 Sep 2020.

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. “Tamiflu: Consumer Questions and Answers.” FDA.gov. 14 Nov 2017.

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Drug Approval Package — Tamiflu. FDA.gov. Approval date 27 Oct 1999.

National Institutes of Health. About the NIH. NIH.gov. 7 Jul 2015.

National Institutes of Health. “How are drugs approved for use in the United States?” NIH.gov. 1 Dec 2016.

World Health Organization. “WHO advises that ivermectin only be used to treat COVID-19 within clinical trials.” WHO.int. 31 Mar 2021.

National Institutes of Health. COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines — ivermectin. NIH.gov. 11 Feb 2021.

Merck & Co. “Merck Statement on Ivermectin use During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Merck.com. 4 Feb 2021.

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.” FDA.gov. 5 Mar 2021.

McDonald, Jessica and Eugene Kiely. FactCheck.org. “Azar, Trump Mislead on FDA’s Hydroxychloroquine Decision.” 18 Jun 2020.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Things to Know about the COVID-19 Pandemic. CDC.gov. 17 Mar 2021.

McDonald, Jessica. FactCheck.org. “Does Vitamin D Protect Against COVID-19?” 8 Jun 2020.

Stone, Will. NPR. “A Year In, Here’s What We Know About Vitamin D For Preventing COVID.” 14 Apr 2021.

Miller, Korin. Prevention. “Can Vitamin D Reduce Your Risk of COVID-19? Doctors Say the Answer Isn’t Simple.” 15 Sep 2020.

 

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/04/scicheck-idaho-doctor-makes-baseless-claims-about-safety-of-covid-19-vaccines/

[Huat Zai]

Dr. Ryan Cole removed from one of Idaho’s largest health care networks

The group includes Idaho’s largest health system, as well as independent clinics and medical providers.

 

A controversial Idaho pathologist and his laboratory are no longer in a group of about 2,800 health care providers, responsible for the care — and lab tests — of about 160,000 Idahoans.

It’s unclear whether the network, St. Luke’s Health Partners, chose to eject Dr. Ryan Cole and his laboratory, Cole Diagnostics, or if Cole himself chose to leave the network.

Cole and his wife, who acts as his media liaison, did not respond to email or text messages Tuesday.

Either way, the removal means Cole’s laboratory is no longer “in network” for Idaho patients with certain health insurance plans. Select Health, a Utah-based insurer, is linked to St. Luke’s Health Partners, as are other Idaho insurers’ “narrow network” plans.

Select Health plans that are sold on Idaho’s health insurance exchange, alone, cover more than 45,000 Idahoans, according to the company’s regulatory filings.

“St. Luke’s can confirm that Cole Diagnostics (and its sole provider, Dr. Cole) is no longer participating in the St. Luke’s Health Partners or BrightPath networks,” Christine Myron, St. Luke’s Health System’s public relations manager for the Treasure Valley, wrote in an email to the Idaho Capital Sun. (St. Luke’s Health Partners is known in some regions of Idaho as BrightPath.)

“However, Idaho peer review law prevents St. Luke’s from disclosing any further detail in response to your questions,” Myron wrote.

She directed the Sun to the Idaho peer review confidentiality statutes, starting with Section 1392 of Chapter 39 of the Idaho Code.

County commissioners in August chose Cole to serve as the only physician on the board of Central District Health, Idaho’s largest regional health department.

Before and since his appointment, Cole has spoken out against the COVID-19 vaccine, making claims of health risks that are not backed up by scientific research. He also has criticized health care providers who care for COVID-19 patients in hospitals and has promoted and prescribed unproven drugs for COVID-19.

The Idaho Medical Association in October filed a complaint against Cole with the Idaho Board of Medicine, which licenses Idaho doctors. The association of Cole’s peers claimed that, as a clinical and anatomic pathologist, his treatment of patients with COVID-19 did not meet the standard of care for an Idaho doctor.

Cole also is the subject of an investigation by the Washington Medical Commission. The commission received at least five complaints this year about Cole promulgating misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.

A summary of the complaints, provided to the Sun in response to a public record request:

 

(go through the link to read the documents, can't get link to embed)

 

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2021/12/08/dr-ryan-cole-removed-from-one-of-idahos-largest-health-care-networks/

[socrates469bc]

1 minute ago, Huat Zai said:

Idaho Doctor Makes Baseless Claims About Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines

SciCheck Digest

A viral video features a doctor making dubious claims about COVID-19 vaccines and treatments at a forum hosted by Idaho’s lieutenant governor. Dr. Ryan Cole claims mRNA vaccines cause cancer and autoimmune diseases, but the lead author of the paper on which Cole based that claim told us there is no evidence mRNA vaccines cause those ailments.

 

Full Story

Update, Aug. 27, 2021: The Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which was previously authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use, received full approval from the agency on Aug. 23 for people 16 years of age and older.

Update, Feb. 10, 2022: The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine received full approval from the FDA on Jan. 31 for individuals 18 years of age and older. 

More than 565,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S., but two effective mRNA vaccines are now available. Some treatments for certain patients, such as those hospitalized or receiving oxygen, have also been approved or authorized by federal agencies, and they continue to be studied.

Since the pandemic began, however, politicized social media posts have featured doctors, some looking authoritative in white coats, spreading dubious claims about both vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. The most recent example in this misinformation niche is Dr. Ryan Cole, who owns a medical lab in Idaho.

 

Cole is featured in a video that has amassed more than a million views. He makes a variety of claims, some of which we’ve addressed before.

The video was recorded while he spoke at a forum on March 4 hosted by Idaho’s lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin, a Republican, and it was posted by a Libertarian organization called the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

McGeachin was featured in an October post by that group, posing with a Bible and a gun in a video that advocated against public health measures related to the pandemic and asked viewers to sign a statement saying that “any order issued in the future will be ignored.”

Cole said in an interview with FactCheck.org that he’s “not affiliated with any political party, group or organization.” According to the Idaho Secretary of State’s office, Cole is registered as a Republican.

In the March 4 video, Cole makes claims suggesting that federal agencies have acted nefariously, as well as claims that undermine vaccines and promise miracle treatments.

We’ll address his four main claims.

• Although there is no evidence to support this, Cole suggested that some of the COVID-19 vaccines could cause cancer or autoimmune diseases.
• Again, without evidence, Cole suggested that the federal government withheld a treatment for COVID-19 in order to “vend” a vaccine.
• Studies haven’t proved that ivermectin is effective in treating COVID-19, but Cole claimed that federal agencies “have suppressed this life-saving medication.”
• Cole said public health officials should encourage people to take vitamin D supplements rather than wear masks or stay physically distant from others.

Vaccine Safety

Two of the COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S. use messenger RNA, or mRNA, to train recipients’ immune systems to make antibodies that fight the virus that causes COVID-19. (See SciCheck’s articles on those vaccines: “A Guide to Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine“ and “A Guide to Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 Vaccine.”)

These are the first vaccines using mRNA technology authorized in the U.S., but scientists have been developing and testing mRNA vaccines for years, including in people during clinical trials. Still, misinformation exploiting fears of this new technology has been common online.

To those bogus claims, Cole has now added: “mRNA trials in mammals have led to odd cancers. mRNA trials on mammals have led to autoimmune diseases — not right away, six, nine, 12 months later.”

We asked Cole to provide support for those claims, and he referred us to a 2018 paper published in the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery that reviewed trials and studies of various, earlier mRNA vaccines.

But that paper doesn’t support his statement.

Norbert Pardi, a research assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, was the lead author of the paper. He told us in an email, “No publications demonstrate that mRNA vaccines cause cancer or autoimmune diseases.”

Pardi’s 19-page paper does make one passing reference to autoimmune diseases, which is what Cole highlighted to us.

The paper says: “A possible concern could be that some mRNA-based vaccine platforms induce potent type I interferon responses, which have been associated not only with inflammation but also potentially with autoimmunity. Thus, identification of individuals at an increased risk of autoimmune reactions before mRNA vaccination may allow reasonable precautions to be taken.”

But, Pardi explained, he and the other researchers included that passage because they wanted to note some potential concerns. However, he emphasized that “no scientific evidence has confirmed that these concerns are real.”

It’s also worth noting that the paper predated the COVID-19 pandemic by two years, so it doesn’t include any information specifically about the COVID-19 vaccines.

Simply put, “there is no scientific evidence that shows that mRNA vaccines cause autoimmune diseases,” Pardi said. “Multiple clinical trials have been performed with mRNA vaccines in the past 10 years and none of them found that mRNA vaccination caused autoimmune diseases. Further, we are not aware of any studies showing an autoimmune disease appearing many months after vaccination as Dr. Cole inaccurately suggests.”

Likewise, Dr. Roger Shapiro, associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told us in an email that he was unaware of any study that would support Cole’s claim that the vaccines are carcinogenic.

“There is nothing in the science of mRNA vaccines that would suggest carcinogenicity, and they have been tested in humans for other diseases before COVID-19,” Shapiro said. “mRNA rapidly breaks down in the body, and probably does not last long enough to act as a carcinogen.”

“Regarding autoimmunity,” he said, “this is always a concern with any medical product, but there is no evidence to date suggesting it, and it does not seem any more likely than with other vaccines. mRNA is made all the time in our bodies, and delivering it by vaccine should not be different.”

Dr. Dean Winslow, an infectious disease physician at Stanford Health Care, concurred with the other experts with whom we spoke. In a phone interview, he characterized Cole’s claims about cancer as “fearmongering” and said, “There’s just no scientific basis for that.”

“We’re talking about these very small fragments of messenger RNA that don’t hang around for long at all,” he said, noting that the mRNA vaccines have been in use for almost six months and have been “very safe, very well-tolerated vaccines.”

Winslow recognized that some people are concerned that the mRNA from the vaccine might persist in their bodies and somehow change their genetics or cause long-term effects. So he emphasized that the vaccines have small fragments of RNA, which survive only briefly and carry information about the virus that causes COVID-19.

Similarly, Pardi told us, “COVID-19 mRNA vaccines do not alter our DNA and they get rapidly degraded so they do not promote cancer formation.”

Treatments, Vaccines Can Both Be Approved

Cole also suggested in the video that the federal government had suppressed a treatment for COVID-19 in order to “vend” a vaccine. (We’ll address his claims about the supposed treatment in the next section.)

“If there’s a treatment for a disease, the federal government cannot approve a vaccine by law, by rule,” Cole falsely claimed, suggesting that federal agencies were withholding access to a treatment for COVID-19 so that they could instead profit from vaccines.

“So, the NIH, who, you know, is involved in approving medications, they co-hold the patent on the ‘vaccine’ with Moderna,” Cole said, referring to the National Institutes of Health, an agency that does not approve medications. “If the fox is not guarding the henhouse there, I don’t know who is. That also is insanity to have the government in bed with a private company vending a product that they want to give to everybody.”

There are several problems with this statement.

First, there is no law barring vaccines if treatments are available for a given disease, said Jorge Contreras, a professor in the College of Law at the University of Utah who specializes in intellectual property and genetics and the law. He asked, “Why would there be such a law?”

Clearly there isn’t, Contreras pointed out, since the Food and Drug Administration authorizes a flu vaccine every year while Tamiflu, an antiviral drug used to treat the flu, has been available since the FDA approved it in 1999.

“It’s certainly true that many diseases that we vaccinate for, there is no known cure for,” he said, noting that this is often the case with viral diseases, which are hard to treat.

“But that’s not a legal requirement. That’s a scientific reality,” he said.

As for Cole’s claim about the NIH, that agency conducts and funds research. It doesn’t approve drugs, medical devices or vaccines — that’s a function of the FDA.

The NIH did collaborate with Moderna on the development of its COVID-19 vaccine. As we’ve explained, government researchers had previously been working with scientists at Moderna on an investigational vaccine to protect against MERS, another disease caused by a coronavirus. The team was able to apply that knowledge to design a COVID-19 vaccine.

Since the NIH does research, it also files and receives patents, many of which it licenses to pharmaceutical companies. So, Contreras said, NIH’s patents stemming from research on mRNA vaccines are to be expected, and use of those patents by pharmaceutical companies is also to be expected. Similarly, scientists from government-funded labs sometimes share credit on patents with scientists from privately funded labs. That’s normal, too, Contreras said.

Generally, he explained, there are two reasons that the NIH licenses its patents to companies. First, the NIH is a taxpayer-funded institution, and it can recoup some of its investment in research by lending out the use of its discoveries. Second, the clinical trials required to bring a drug or vaccine to market are risky and expensive, so, theoretically, making its discoveries available to companies can encourage the private sector to take the risk and create products.

So, Cole mischaracterizes the relationship between the NIH and the vaccine manufacturers when he says that it’s a “conflict of interest” to have the “federal government in bed with a vaccine company.”

It’s actually normal to have pharmaceutical companies use government-owned patents.

And he’s wrong when he says of federal agencies, “they don’t want a therapy to work because then they can vend their vaccine.”

There’s nothing that would prohibit the use of vaccines if there were an effective treatment for COVID-19.

Not Enough Data on Ivermectin

Neither the World Health Organization nor the National Institutes of Health has recommended the use of ivermectin — a common anti-parasitic medication — in the treatment of COVID-19.

Merck, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures ivermectin, has similarly noted that there is “[n]o scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies; No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and; A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.”

But Cole claimed in the video that ivermectin is a “treatment” for COVID-19.

He suggested that federal agencies have stifled its use so that they could profit from vaccines, as we explained above.

“We’re in farm country, horse country — you know, you give it to your dogs, your cats, your horses,” Cole said in the video, addressing an audience in Idaho.

Ivermectin is used to treat parasites in animals, but crossover use in humans can be dangerous. While Cole may have only been emphasizing the ubiquity of the drug, not suggesting that people should take veterinary medicine, the FDA has said that patients have been hospitalized after taking ivermectin intended for horses as interest in the drug as treatment for COVID-19 has grown.

Ivermectin does have antiviral properties, but the FDA hasn’t approved it to treat any viral infections. It is being studied with regard to COVID-19, though, according to both the WHO and NIH.

“Treating COVID-19 with Ivermectin is still being evaluated in clinical trials, but at present there is not enough evidence to support its use,” said Shapiro, the Harvard professor. “My understanding is that the inhibitory dose needed for it to work is extremely high and trying to take enough to suppress the virus could lead to other problems.”

The trials so far have “showed no benefit or worsening disease, some showed shorter time to disease resolution or viral clearance, and some did show a possible mortality benefit; but there were problems with most of these trials that include small sample size and different outcome measures and other possible biases,” he said.

Winslow, from Stanford, cautioned that “there have been many claims for miracle cures” over the course of the pandemic and said that ivermectin would need more rigorous study before we know how useful it would be in treating COVID-19.

“Ivermectin truly is a wonder drug for parasitic diseases,” he said, “but my suspicion is that it will be a lot like hydroxychloroquine.”

Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug that was touted by former President Donald Trump as a treatment for COVID-19, although studies found that it wasn’t an effective treatment and may cause serious side effects in some patients, as we’ve explained before.

The problem with drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, which are promoted as having broad-spectrum antiviral properties, is that the quantity of inhibitor required to effectively kill off the virus also sickens the host cells, Winslow said.

Even potent versions, like remdesivir, which Winslow referred to as the “gold standard” of specific antiviral therapy in COVID-19 treatments, only accelerates the time to recovery, but doesn’t significantly reduce death rates or mortality from COVID-19. Remdesivir is the only drug approved by the FDA to treat COVID-19; the approval is for patients requiring hospitalization.

So, Cole’s claim that “there is blood on the hands of bureaucrats in Washington who have suppressed this life-saving medication,” is unfounded. Ivermectin hasn’t been proved to be effective.

Overstating Effect of Vitamin D

Another of the major points that Cole emphasized in the video is the role vitamin D could have in fighting COVID-19.

“If you do not supplement with vitamin D in the wintertime, you are immune suppressed. Most insurance companies in Idaho and northern states do not pay for a vitamin D test, unfortunately,” said Cole, whose lab offers several vitamin D tests.

After eschewing public health guidelines that recommend staying six feet apart and wearing masks to slow the spread of the virus, Cole said, “What should public health message number one, two, and three be? Vitamin D, vitamin D, vitamin D.”

It’s true that vitamin D, which is mostly associated with bone health, plays a part in the immune system. But that doesn’t mean it’s a panacea for COVID-19, as we’ve explained before.

While a lot of basic research points to vitamin D having a role in the immune system, it is less clear if these mechanisms are applicable in clinical practice and to what degree they would benefit COVID-19 patients, as we’ve written. Studies assessing whether vitamin D can treat or prevent infectious diseases have generally been inconsistent.

A recent article from NPR looked at the research on vitamin D with respect to COVID-19 over the last year and found, essentially, the same thing. It also noted that some studies have shown that low vitamin D levels are associated with a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 or with becoming seriously ill.

“While these studies raised hopes among some researchers, others are skeptical, noting that most of these are observational studies, not the gold-standard randomized, controlled trials,” the story said.

“Much of the available evidence only shows association — not causation — and even those results are mixed,” Walter Willett, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, told NPR.

In September, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an Instagram Live interview that for those who are deficient in vitamin D, “I would not mind recommending, and I do it myself, taking vitamin D supplements.” But, as we wrote before, excessive doses should not be used.

Editor’s note: SciCheck’s COVID-19/Vaccination Project is made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over our editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation. The goal of the project is to increase exposure to accurate information about COVID-19 and vaccines, while decreasing the impact of misinformation.

Sources

Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. Coronavirus Resource Center. Accessed 16 Apr 2021.

Harvard Health Publishing. “Treatments for COVID-19.” Harvard Medical School. Updated 5 Apr 2021.

Fichera, Angelo. FactCheck.org. “Texas Doctor Spreads False Claims About COVID-19 Vaccines.” 26 Mar 2021.

Hale Spencer, Saranac. FactCheck.org. “Video Uses Bogus Claims to Stoke Race-Based Fears of COVID-19 Vaccine.” 2 Feb 2021.

Idaho Secretary of State’s Office. Email to FactCheck.org. 9 Apr 2021.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines.” CDC.gov. Updated 4 Mar 2021.

McDonald, Jessica. FactCheck.org. “A Guide to Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine.” Updated 9 Apr 2021.

McDonald, Jessica. FactCheck.org. “A Guide to Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 Vaccine.” Updated 9 Apr 2021.

Jaramillo, Catalina. FactCheck.org. “No Evidence Vaccines Impact Fertility.” Updated 3 Mar 2021.

Pardi, Norbert, et al. “mRNA vaccines — a new era in vaccinology.” Nature Reviews. 12 Jan 2018.

Pardi, Norbert. Research assistant professor of medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Email exchange with FactCheck.org. 12 Apr 2021.

Shapiro, Roger. Associate professor of immunology and infectious diseases, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University. Emailed responses to FactCheck.org. 8 Apr 2021.

Winslow, Dean. Infectious disease physician, Stanford Health Care. Telephone interview with FactCheck.org. 12 Apr 2021.

Contreras, Jorge. Professor, college of law, University of Utah. Telephone interview with FactCheck.org. 15 Apr 2021.

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. “FDA’s Critical Role in Ensuring Supply of Influenza Vaccine.” FDA.gov. 28 Sep 2020.

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. “Tamiflu: Consumer Questions and Answers.” FDA.gov. 14 Nov 2017.

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Drug Approval Package — Tamiflu. FDA.gov. Approval date 27 Oct 1999.

National Institutes of Health. About the NIH. NIH.gov. 7 Jul 2015.

National Institutes of Health. “How are drugs approved for use in the United States?” NIH.gov. 1 Dec 2016.

World Health Organization. “WHO advises that ivermectin only be used to treat COVID-19 within clinical trials.” WHO.int. 31 Mar 2021.

National Institutes of Health. COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines — ivermectin. NIH.gov. 11 Feb 2021.

Merck & Co. “Merck Statement on Ivermectin use During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Merck.com. 4 Feb 2021.

U.S. Food & Drug Administration. “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.” FDA.gov. 5 Mar 2021.

McDonald, Jessica and Eugene Kiely. FactCheck.org. “Azar, Trump Mislead on FDA’s Hydroxychloroquine Decision.” 18 Jun 2020.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Things to Know about the COVID-19 Pandemic. CDC.gov. 17 Mar 2021.

McDonald, Jessica. FactCheck.org. “Does Vitamin D Protect Against COVID-19?” 8 Jun 2020.

Stone, Will. NPR. “A Year In, Here’s What We Know About Vitamin D For Preventing COVID.” 14 Apr 2021.

Miller, Korin. Prevention. “Can Vitamin D Reduce Your Risk of COVID-19? Doctors Say the Answer Isn’t Simple.” 15 Sep 2020.

 

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/04/scicheck-idaho-doctor-makes-baseless-claims-about-safety-of-covid-19-vaccines/

 

there is always the possibilities of increased cancer rate after vaccination, just not immediate.

 

but what is immediate is the increased death rate in pappyland in 2021.

 

 The age-standardised death rate¹ five years ago, in 2017, was 563* per 100,000 persons. This has been decreasing steadily to 519* per 100,000 in 2020, even though 2020 was a COVID-19 year. However, in 2021, the age-standardised death rate rose to 557 per 100,000 persons, comparable to that in 2017

 

https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/deaths-in-singapore-for-year-2021

 

wahahahahahahahahahaha

[Huat Zai]

5 minutes ago, socrates469bc said:

 

there is always the possibilities of increased cancer rate after vaccination, just not immediate.

 

but what is immediate is the increased death rate in pappyland in 2021.

 

 The age-standardised death rate¹ five years ago, in 2017, was 563* per 100,000 persons. This has been decreasing steadily to 519* per 100,000 in 2020, even though 2020 was a COVID-19 year. However, in 2021, the age-standardised death rate rose to 557 per 100,000 persons, comparable to that in 2017

 

https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/deaths-in-singapore-for-year-2021

 

wahahahahahahahahahaha

There are also other factors to consider mah, like lockdown rage. Knn, lim jiu chill with bros also tio hood by a bro, let alone lockdown with your 黄脸婆

 

 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by Huat Zai

[socrates469bc]

Just now, Huat Zai said:

There are also other factors to consider mah, like lockdown rage. Knn, lim jiu chill with bros also tio hood by a bro, let alone lockdown with your 黄脸婆

 

tiagong ib 1st brigade recruiting.

 

didi shld really sign up and becum andy lau.

 

and then work ur way up to sabo pappy central committee.

 

wahahahahahahahaha

[Huat Zai]

5 minutes ago, socrates469bc said:

 

tiagong ib 1st brigade recruiting.

 

didi shld really sign up and becum andy lau.

 

and then work ur way up to sabo pappy central committee.

 

wahahahahahahahaha

I would have applied, if I haven't been on ISD's watchlist for the past 20+ years

Edited May 19, 2022 by Huat Zai

[Bigbird]

On 5/19/2022 at 8:53 PM, socrates469bc said:

 

tiagong ib 1st brigade recruiting.

 

didi shld really sign up and becum andy lau.

 

and then work ur way up to sabo pappy central committee.

 

wahahahahahahahaha

 

On 5/19/2022 at 8:57 PM, Huat Zai said:

I would have applied, if I haven't been on ISD's watchlist for the past 20+ years

 

Senpai

Its ok to disagree in my thread & we should do it with evidence and respectfully.  I hope it dont become NK here!

 

So whack ah!!   

 

However, evidence shows smoking causes lung cancer, but many smokers says they live longer & more healthy then non smokers! 

[Satki]

Read Thailand will be first country in Asia that will allow unvax to come in with no quarantine. Just need PCR or ART at entry.

 

so they are trying to attract my dollars

 

@socrates469bc time for jacuzzi?

[socrates469bc]

5 hours ago, Bigbird said:

 

 

Senpai

Its ok to disagree in my thread & we should do it with evidence and respectfully.  I hope it dont become NK here!

 

So whack ah!!   

 

However, evidence shows smoking causes lung cancer, but many smokers says they live longer & more healthy then non smokers! 

 

do u know why Comrade Deng pass away at 93 instead of 100???????

 

wahahahahahahahahaha

 

[socrates469bc]

3 hours ago, Satki said:

Read Thailand will be first country in Asia that will allow unvax to come in with no quarantine. Just need PCR or ART at entry.

 

so they are trying to attract my dollars

 

@socrates469bc time for jacuzzi?

 

means time to set up bkk reit liao.

 

wahahahahahahahaha

 

[Bigbird]

23 hours ago, socrates469bc said:

 

do u know why Comrade Deng pass away at 93 instead of 100???????

 

wahahahahahahahahaha

 

 

Which era is this??

 

Men & woman have pig tails hair-do one ah?

Edited May 22, 2022 by Bigbird