Mortality for some cancers increased by as much as 9.7%, according to a study by Japanese researchers who analyzed government statistics to compare age-adjusted cancer mortality rates during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022) with pre-pandemic rates.
JULY 1, 2024
The journal Cureus last week retracted a Japanese study that found statistically significant increases in cancer mortality following COVID-19 vaccination, especially after the third COVID-19 shot.
The journal said on its website, “Upon post-publication review, it has been determined that the correlation between mortality rates and vaccination status cannot be proven with the data presented in this article.” This invalidated the results, prompting the retraction, the journal said.
Denis Rancourt, Ph.D., all-cause mortality researcher and former physics professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada, who also has published in Cureus, on X, formerly known as Twitter, called the retraction “baseless.”
“Showing data in support of vaccine-induced cancer is not allowed: burn it,” he wrote.
Other scientists also expressed frustration with the retraction.
“Unfortunately, one more scientific study that challenges the established narrative gets retracted,” Panagis Polykretis, Ph.D., a researcher at Italy’s Institute of Applied Physics at the National Research Council said in an email shared with The Defender. “One more outrageous and unjustified example of censorship takes place!”
The study, published in April, analyzed official Japanese government statistics to compare age-adjusted cancer mortality rates during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022) with pre-pandemic rates.
The researchers found a 2.1% mortality increase in 2021 and a 9.6% increase In 2022.
They determined that age-adjusted death rates for leukemia, breast, pancreatic and lip/oral/pharyngeal cancers increased significantly in 2022 after a large portion of the Japanese population had received the third dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.
Overall, they found no significant cancer-related excess mortality in 2020, but a 1.1% increase in 2021 after the rollout of the first and second vaccine doses, and a 2.1% increase in 2022.
Mortality for some cancers increased by as much as 9.7%, according to the study.
The paper also discussed possible mechanisms by which multiple mRNA vaccines could influence cancer rates and called for further research into the issue.
The findings suggested the vaccines may be accelerating cancer deaths in patients with preexisting tumors, according to John Campbell, Ph.D., who discussed the study on his YouTube show.
The paper went through a “rigorous peer review process,” according to Polykretis, who detailed the retraction saga on his Substack, before Cureus accepted the paper on April 8.
Less than a month after the paper’s publication, Reuters issued a “fact check” of a social media post that cited the paper. Reuters called the analysis “flawed” and said the study “assumes without evidence that vaccines are the cause of the cancer death rates they observe.”
The “Fact Check” article also stated the paper offered no proof of “turbo cancers” — a claim the study authors don’t make.
On June 12, Graham Parker-Finger, director of publishing for the Cureus Journal of Medical Science, notified the authors about concerns with their paper, citing the Reuters Fact Check, Polykretis reported.
An “expression of concern” was posted that same day and about a month later the journal retracted the article.
The article has been viewed over 287,000 times.
Polykretis asked, since when does a scientific journal’s editorial board judge scientific studies “on the basis of a poorly written, not backed by scientific data and not peer-reviewed fact-checking” articles?
M. Nathaniel Mead is co-author of the first peer-reviewed paper to provide an extensive analysis of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine trial data and post-injection injuries. Meadh, whose article also was printed and then retracted by Cureus, told The Defender this latest retraction was “unfortunate but also quite revealing.”
He said:
“The Gibo et al. retraction makes it official: Even though Cureus has now published many counter-establishment narrative papers related to adverse events, it is clearly ‘unsafe’ for any authors presenting papers that expose the likely mortality risk of these gene-based prodrugs.
“As you will recall, our comprehensive ‘Lessons Learned’ review and analysis also was heavily focused on the mortality aspect. So that’s where Springer-Nature seems to be drawing the line — after they accept the paper.
“Scientists seeking to publish on mortality-related aspects of the Covid mod mRNA injections obviously need to be extra cautious when considering their publishing options. These weaponized, predatory retractions will likely continue for as long as these products remain on the market.”
Dr. John Adler at Stanford University and Dr. Alexander Muacevic at the University of Munich Hospitals co-founded Cureus in 2009 as a web-based, peer-reviewed, open-access general medical journal with low-cost barriers to publication.
The academic publishing giant Springer Nature bought Cureus in December 2022.
Springer Nature is a publishing conglomerate founded in 2015 through a merger of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillian, Macmillan Education and Springer Science+Business Media.
The publisher generated 1.8 billion euros in 2022, showing continuous year-over-year growth since 2020.
The Defender asked the editors at Cureus and Springer Nature to comment on the retraction and the allegations of censorship.
Parker-Finger responded, “Concerns were raised following publication, so we undertook a post-publication review, in line with good publishing practice, which led us to conclude that retraction was warranted for the reasons outlined in the retraction note.”
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