Is it true that taking a 6th vaccine dose will cause cancer because COVID vaccines contain cancer-inducing gene mutations? No, that's not true: 5 or 6 doses (including booster shots) are recommended to people who are immunocompromised or at risk, and there is no evidence that the COVID vaccine causes cancer.
The claim originally appeared on TikTok (archived here) on May 10, 2023. In the video, a message from the Tohoku Volunteer Medical Association is displayed on a screen. The message can be translated as:
"Did you know? Japan is the only country that's mandating five vaccine doses. WHO and CDC have decided not to recommend booster shots. Japan is also the only country in the world to mandate six doses from May 8, 2023 onwards. The vaccines contain "cancer-inducing gene mutations." Please do research before you put random things in your body."
This is what the TikTok video looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri May 26 02:46:14 2023 UTC)
The WHO and the CDC recommend taking booster shots and updating COVID vaccines, to combat new strains. This is especially true for those who are immunocompromised or are at severe risk of COVID. The Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare stated that those who are aged 12 and over, are only required to have three booster shots if they already had their initial two injections, which adds up to five doses in total.
The Tohoku Volunteer Medical Association is notoriously known as an anti-vax organization, spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccines on their social media sites. The National Volunteer Medical Association, which oversees the Tohoku branch, has gained attention for disseminating and promoting anti-vaccination information. On their website, they discuss the concept of "turbo cancer." Lead Stories already debunked a similar claim on adverse vaccine reactions triggering "turbo-charged" cancers, concluding that the data surrounding this claim was false. Additionally, Lead Stories has also debunked several claims that COVID-19 boosters cause cancer. Furthermore, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has also debunked the myth, stating that the vaccines do not interact with or alter the DNA, and thus cannot cause cancer in the body.
