Do COVID vaccines give kids cancer?

Defrocked radiologist William Makis highlights a German study to claim children ages 5-11 who received Pfizer’s COVID-19 mRNA vaccine have a higher risk of cancer due to immune system damage, with no benefit from the vaccine.

These claims get several things wrong about the German study:

First, the study doesn’t mention the words cancer or damage, let alone immune system damage, even once. and Makis himself doesn’t offer up any evidence in support of his claims. The study notes that IgG4 antibodies increased over time, but there is no link made between these antibodies and any negative impact.

Makis claims that high levels of IgG4 are linked to a higher risk of cancer and damage to the immune system, but there aren’t any studies that prove this. While scientific understanding of IgG4 immune cells is still evolving, this paper looked at the issue of IgG4 and offered that they make up only a small part of the antibodies that target the COVID spike protein after vaccination. The paper concluded that, overall, these antibodies are unlikely to weaken the immunity of vaccinated people.

The claim that the paper concludes the vaccine was a failure is inaccurate. In fact, the paper pointed out that vaccinated children who came down with COVID had no or only mild symptoms by the time of study follow-up, suggesting that the vaccine did work.

We already know that the COVID vaccine doesn’t offer 100% immunity but can reduce the risk of long COVID and reduce symptoms and mortality if people catch COVID.  We would call Makis’ take on this disinformation since he purposely skews and distorts the real findings of the study.

Read more of our posts debunking claims about COVID vaccines and cancer.