Tucker Carlson was left stunned after a top doctor revealed Covid may be responsible for America’s cancer ‘pandemic.’
America is facing a surge of cancers in young healthy people, particularly diseases like colon and pancreatic cancer that were once thought to be an ‘old person’s’ condition.
While a host of factors like environmental toxins, diet, and lifestyle have all been to blame in recent years, a top cancer researcher suggests Covid may play a role.
On the latest episode of The Tucker Carlson Show, cancer researcher Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong refers to Covid as an ‘ongogenic virus,’ meaning it could cause cancer.
The virus hepatitis, for example, increases the risk of liver cancer, while sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) causes almost all cervical cancers.
He said Covid may have a similar effect due to spike proteins on the surface of the Covid virus. These spike proteins are also in the Pfizer and Moderna Covid vaccines and can bind to receptors on human cells throughout the body.
Dr Soon-Shiong said on the podcast that when spike proteins bind to those receptors, they trigger inflammation that suppresses cells meant to kill diseased cells, such as cancer cells.
This could lead to a surge in cancers, especially in areas with large amounts of these ACE2 receptors like the pancreas and colon.
Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong (pictured here), a cancer researcher from South Africa, said on The Tucker Carlson show that Covid may be responsible for a rise in cancers in the US
Carlson, pictured here, reacted with shock to Dr Soon-Shiong’s theory
Carlson reacted with shock, telling the researcher: ‘It sounds like you’re describing what could be like the worst human health crisis in history.’
‘Now you know what keeps me up at night,’ Dr Soon-Shiong said.
The doctor did not, however, distinguish between the Covid virus, which has infected three and four Americans, and the vaccines, which 80 percent of people in the US have taken at least one dose of.
He also did not recommend against vaccination.
Dr Soon-Shiong said spike proteins, ‘whether it comes from the vaccine, which is a spike protein vaccine, or from the infection, which is spike driven, gets into every cell of our body.’
He added: ‘[Spike protein] goes wherever you have this thing called the ACE2 receptor, which is in the blood vessels. So wherever you have a blood vessel in the body, that’s where it’s going to go… because that’s the purpose of spike protein, to penetrate, or hijack that ACE2 and get into their cells.’
He noted this could be why patients with Covid or Long Covid experience symptoms like brain fog, as spike proteins bind to blood vessels in the brain.
According to a 2021 study in the journal Pharmacological Reports, ACE2 receptors are ‘particularly overexpressed on intestinal epithelial cells of the gut,’ where colon cancer forms.
And a 2024 study from researchers in China found that Covid infection increased the risk of pancreatic impairment, which can lead to chronic pancretitis, a known risk factor for pancreatic cancer.
Dr Soon-Shiong said: ‘You see young people with pancreatic cancer all of a sudden. You see young people with colon cancer all of a sudden.
‘So is it by coincidence that post Covid infection, post Covid vaccine, we’ve seen all these events where we know the spike protein goes there?
‘I don’t think so. I think it’s not a coincidence.’
Carlson responded: ‘By your definition, we just solved the mystery right there.’
Dr Soon-Shiong pointed to a 2021 study from researchers at the University of California – San Francisco, which found spike proteins bind to ACE2 receptors so they can gain entry into human cells.
Rates of colorectal cancer in Americans under 50 have risen over the past two decades. This graph shows the latest year for which data is available
Additionally, a study published last year of colon cancer patients who either had or did not have Covid found the group with Covid had fewer neutrophils, a type of immune-boosting white blood cell that protects against chronic diseases.
The Covid virus was also found to be replicating in the patients’ colon tissue.
This suggested Covid may have suppressed their immune systems, potentially contributing to their colon cancer.
Colon cancer is one of the main cancers on the rise in young patients, with the disease estimated to be the biggest cancer killer in patients under 50 by 2030.
The American Cancer Society estimates 154,270 Americans will be diagnosed with colon cancer this year, and 52,900 will die. This includes 19,550 cases and 3,750 deaths in under-50s.
Researchers in the UK have also found spike proteins can reawaken dormant cancer cells and fuel their growth, increasing the risk of breast, stomach, and blood cancers.
And a 2024 study found when mice who previously had cancer were infected with the Covid virus, cancer cells multiplied and spread to the lungs.
Dr Soon-Shiong said while much of the research on America’s rising cancer rates in young people have focused on environmental exposures, immunosuppression from inflammation could be a more likely cause.
He said: ‘It scares the pants off me because I don’t think it’s virus versus man now. This is existential.
‘I think when I talk about the largest non-infectious pandemic that we’re afraid of, this is it.’
Dr Soon-Shiong, pictured here with Carlson, said: ‘Now you know what keeps me up at night’
However, much of the evidence on Covid and cancer is still mixed.
John Schiller, a researcher for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) who studied cancer-causing viruses, said pathogens known to cause cancers, such as hepatitis or HIV, do so because they live in the body for long periods of time.
Covid, however, tends to filter out after a few weeks.
Schiller said last year: ‘You can never say never, but that sort of … virus does not suggest being implicated in cancers.’
Dr Douglas Wallace, geneticist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Pennsylvania, however noted to Advisory.com that ‘we are completely under-investigating this virus.’
‘The effects of repeatedly getting this throughout our lives is going to be much more significant than people are thinking,’ he said.
Dr Soon-Shiong said about emerging research: ‘I’m scared but I’m hopeful.’