A talk show host affiliated with the conspiracy theory website Infowars has made numerous false claims in a video that COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer.
Owen Shroyer, who was indicted in August for his role in the January 6 Capitol riot (here), broadcasts his show daily on an Infowars platform.
In a video released in October, the Texas resident told the audience that "vaccines are causing cancer," before escalating his claim to say that United States authorities "knew vaccines were causing cancer." (here) and (here).
Fake Case Study
Shroyer began the seven-minute clip by recounting a case of a woman he found online who had tweeted on September 15th that she was afraid to get a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. She tweeted again on October 7th, saying she had since been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Shroyer began the seven-minute clip by recounting a case of a woman he found online who had tweeted on September 15th that she was afraid to get a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. She tweeted again on October 7th, saying she had since been diagnosed with breast cancer.
"I believe there is a connection," Shroyer said. "In fact, we know there is a connection. Unfortunately, we're not sure yet."
He added that the woman was "clearly under peer pressure" to get her vaccine and that authorities were aware that she would eventually get cancer.
Reuters contacted the woman on Twitter (she did not want to be identified in this article), who said she had never spoken to anyone from Infowars and that her cancer diagnosis was unrelated to her vaccination.
"I have not been in contact with anyone from their team," she told Reuters via a direct message on Twitter.
"I was not pressured by my colleagues to get the vaccine. To assume this was just because I was concerned about possible (short-term) side effects is ridiculous. My cancer is not related to any vaccine and I will get the booster shot as soon as my doctors recommend it."
Diagnosis Period
Using the same case study from Twitter, Shroyer said: “So, three weeks after she gets the COVID vaccine, she gets breast cancer… This is not the only story. This is just one that I found today. I actually know people personally who got the vaccine and then within two weeks were diagnosed with cancer.”
Spokesperson for the Oxford University Vaccine Project (VKP) (here), told Reuters that this claim reveals a misunderstanding of how quickly cancer can develop in the body.
“To be detectable at the time of diagnosis, most cancers have already existed for months – e.g. breast cancer through a mammogram or prostate cancer through a PSA screening test,” they said.
"So, in the case in this video, it is impossible that her cancer was 'caused' by the vaccine."
Furthermore, there has been no cause-and-effect link between vaccines and cancer, the spokesperson said – meaning that diagnoses immediately after vaccination are coincidental.
"One in two people will develop cancer in their lifetime, with the incidence increasing with age, so, statistically, some people will unfortunately be diagnosed shortly after their vaccination."
The VKP spokesperson added that if a person has cancer that requires treatment – such as chemotherapy, which can suppress the immune system – they will become more vulnerable to COVID-19. Therefore, “pre-vaccination is even more important.”