36 million people's records just answered a frightening question about vaccines and cancer: no link found

Few questions have shadowed the pandemic years like whether COVID-19 vaccination changed cancer rates. South Korean researchers have now examined it at a scale few studies can match: National Health Insurance Service records linked with vaccination records for people born between 1955 and 2004 — some 36 million people. Professor Jung Jae-hoon of Korea University College of Medicine presented the findings at a Korea Science Media Center briefing on October 29. Across 13 categories of cancer, the team found neither a significant jump in diagnoses nor a change in the rate of increase after mass vaccination began in August 2021; a second analysis comparing mRNA and viral-vector vaccines also found no significant differences across 12 cancer types. Jung was careful to add that monitoring should continue, because many cancers develop over years — the honest caveat that makes the reassurance worth trusting.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being