Fact Check By: Craig Jones, Newswise


Truthfulness: False

 





 

Claim: A doctor has found an increase in cancers since the COVID-19 inoculation rollout. 

Claim Publisher and Date: 

 

ANTI ABORTION SITE

LifeSite News on 2021-09-13

An article published on LifeSite News, a site started by a Canadian national "pro-life" organization, says that an Idaho doctor is seeing a "massive ‘uptick’ in various autoimmune diseases and cancers in patients who have been vaccinated."  The doctor is Ryan Cole, a board-certified pathologist and owner and operator of a diagnostics lab. Dr. Cole provides no evidence or data to back this claim. 

“Since January 1, in the laboratory, I’m seeing a 20 times increase of endometrial cancers over what I see on an annual basis,” reported Dr. Cole in the video clip shared on Twitter.

Public health authorities have not reported any surge in cancer diagnoses since the COVID-19 vaccination rollout began in the U.S. in December 2020. According to the American Cancer Society*, there were 1.8 million new cancer cases in 2020 (up from 1.76 million in 2019). They estimated 1.9 million new cancer cases diagnosed in 2021. Although there does seem to be a slight rise in cases, the numbers hardly reflect the "20 times" that Dr. Cole said he's observed.  Obviously, a record spike like that would certainly show on a global scale. 

The American Cancer Society recommends that most people with cancer or a history of cancer get the COVID-19 vaccine once it’s available to them. 

As for vaccines weakening the immune system, Flora Teoh of Health Feedback addresses the claim thoroughly in her Fact Check. 

Cole claimed that the COVID-19 vaccines weakened a person’s immune system, thereby making them more prone to cancer and infectious diseases. He alleged that this was due to the vaccines’ effect on CD8 T cells and cited a “study out of Germany” that examined this subject in “young individuals after the Pfizer” vaccine. CD8+ T cells are a subset of immune cells known as lymphocytes. As explained by the British Society for Immunology, they play a major role in the defense against viruses and bacteria as well as cancer.

Health Feedback reached out to Cole to request the reference for this study, but didn’t receive a response by the time of this review’s publication. We will update this review if new information is available.

 

*https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/cancer-org/research/cancer-facts-and-statistics/annual-cancer-facts-and-figures/2020/cancer-facts-and-figures-2020.pdf