'66 Papers' on COVID Vaccines and Cancer: What They Show

"Three dozen proposed mechanisms. 66 peer-reviewed papers. How much more evidence do we need?"

That is the caption on a clip from the Joe Rogan Experience, episode 2576, posted to Instagram in early November 2026 by @twc.health. The guest is Dr. Peter McCullough, a cardiologist. The episode description calls him chief scientific officer of The Wellness Company, the company behind the @twc.health account. The clip was viewed and shared widely, and many comments describe a loved one's cancer after a COVID shot.

Those stories are real losses, and the question behind them is fair: could the vaccines cause cancer? Here is what the "66 papers" actually are, and what they can and cannot tell us.

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Where the "66" comes from

The number matches a review published January 3, 2026, in the journal Oncotarget by Charlotte Kuperwasser (Tufts University School of Medicine) and Wafik El-Deiry (Brown University). They searched for reports from 2020 to 2025 that described cancer appearing or changing after COVID vaccination or infection.

They counted 69 publications. Of those, 66 were what they call "article-level reports," describing 333 patients across 27 countries. The rest were two large population studies, from Italy and South Korea, and one analysis of U.S. military service members.

So "66 papers" is accurate as a count. The question is what kind of papers they are.

Most of them describe one patient

By the authors' own tally, 55 of the 69 publications (81%) are single-patient case reports or small case series. A case report is a doctor writing up one unusual patient: "this person got a shot, and some weeks later we found this cancer." Case reports are useful as early warnings. They are how doctors flag something worth studying.

But they cannot show that one thing caused another. Billions of COVID vaccine doses were given worldwide, and cancer is common. Many people will be diagnosed with cancer in the months after any shot, by chance alone. A stack of case reports shows that this happened, which no one disputes. It cannot show that it happened more often than it would have anyway. For that, you need studies that compare large groups of vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

What the review's authors say about cause

The review's own authors are clear on this point. They write that the evidence is "insufficient to support definitive conclusions regarding causation or quantification of risk," and that their review "does not establish causation." They say it was "not designed to estimate cancer risk or incidence, nor to draw causal inferences." They describe it as an early, possible "safety-signal" worth more study.

The "three dozen proposed mechanisms" in the caption are ideas about how a vaccine might, in theory, affect cancer. A proposed mechanism is a hypothesis to test, not evidence that something happens in people.

Other scientists have criticized the review further. Writing on Science-Based Medicine on January 12, 2026, surgical oncologist David Gorski argued that it leaned on a website of vaccine-injury reports alongside medical databases, did not account for chance, and treated the Korean and Italian population studies as stronger than they are. The review's authors themselves say those studies have problems, including confounding and the fact that people who see doctors more often get diagnosed more often.

What larger evidence shows

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) says: "There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer, lead to recurrence, or lead to disease progression." The CDC explains that the vaccines do not enter the cell's nucleus, where DNA is kept, and that after the cell uses the mRNA, it breaks it down and removes it.

And the rise in cancer among younger adults that is often cited as proof started before the vaccines existed. An NIH study, described by NCI in 2025, found 14 cancer types rising among people under 50 from 2010 to 2019.

Our full claim check on "turbo cancer" covers this in more detail.

The verdict

Misleading. The 66 reports exist, but most describe a single patient, and the review that collected them says in its own words that it does not establish cause. The caption presents a list of hypotheses and case reports as settled proof. It also does not tell viewers that the guest works for the company that posted it.

If you're worried

If you or someone you love was diagnosed with cancer after a vaccine, it is natural to look for a reason. Your care team can talk through the known risk factors for that specific cancer. If you have symptoms that worry you, such as a new lump, unexplained weight loss, bleeding, or a cough or pain that won't go away, see a doctor. Do not wait.

For help sorting claims online, see how to recognize cancer misinformation.