IN THE POST-PANDEMIC ERA OF COVID: EPIDEMIOLOGICAL COUNTERMEASURES AND THE POTENTIAL OF „MALIGNANT DISEASES EPIDEMIC“

science in lockdown

1st Joint Meeting of Croatian Societies of Pathology and Clinical Cytology (November 2023) (page 84)

Abstract published at the 4th Multidisciplinary symposium with international participation of the Croatian Association for Primary Health Care of the Croatian Medical Association (HDPZZ HLZ), 18-20 November 2023, Vukovar, Croatia.

Predictions of newly diagnosed tumors for 2022 and 2023 were optimistic. A steady decline is predicted for colon, breast cancer, prostate, leukemia, stomach cancer in both sexes and bladder cancer in men. Most cancers showed favorable predicted rates, except pancreatic cancer, which was stable in men in the EU (8.2/100 000) and increased by 3.4% in women in the EU (5.9/100 000). 

Due to the pandemic, it is feared that all those who should have been diagnosed in that period were unnecessarily left out, and malignant diseases spread to each individual, having an impact on the overall outcome of treatment and overall survival. Such a scenario can be followed all over the world and is very worrying. 

All the epidemiological measures taken during the pandemic had the goal of reducing the spread of the COVID-19 disease and the unprecedented level of mortality recorded in 2020. All the scenarios undertaken, with certain, sometimes dubious success, probably showed success regionally, and the excessive mortality in 2021 could not be explained by non-compliance with the recommended epidemiological measures due to the exceptional engagement of all institutions that protectively tried to reduce the effect of the epidemic on each individual. 

The increase in newly diagnosed cancers in lower age groups in which the growth of solid tumors and galloping behavior would not be expected, but was recently described in “anecdotal cases”, as well as the detection of extensive distribution throughout the body at the time of diagnosis, although solid tumors are expected to have a longer period of growth that would be detectable, and even sometimes up to 10 years. 

Epidemiological interventions in the population that included the application of new methods of combating diseases, namely the use of mRNA platform, need to be considered more closely, since insufficient regulatory control, detected, during the manufacturing processes of these medical products was observed, proven and described at the world level, which also included sequencing those products. The discovery of fragments of E.coli, the double stranded plasmid DNA in which two promoters SV40 and T7 have been detected as well the genetic code for resistance to antibiotics (neomycin/kanamycin), all prohibited for human use based on the provisions of the European Medical Agency, are alarming information. 

Accordingly, the possibility of a prolonged inflammatory effect, a detected increase in IgG4 and the possibility of tolerating other possible infective biological agents, generating additional prolonged (long-term) pathological pro-inflammatory effect, as well as the presence of the SV40 promoter which enables entry into the cell nucleus and the potential damage by incorporation into areas where it can stimulate the production of pathological proteins, and generate the occurrence of other diseases, especially tumors. 

This abstract was an attempt to investigate a new carcinoma diagnosed at the Department of Pathology that was diagnosed at two pathology work sites (University Hospital Centre (UHC) and University Hospital for Tumors (UHT)) in patients 55 years and younger using the search engine in the institutional IT system database. 

Methods: The exclusion model was applied: skin cancer, melanoma, lymphoma, and leukemia were excluded, and patients who had tumors in the previous period of 2020 and earlier were excluded. 

The total group was divided into two groups; vaccinated against COVID-19 with at least one dose (or more) before the cancer was detected, and unvaccinated compared to the share of age-stratified groups according to Our World in Data of the Croatian population which received at least one dose. 

The research hypothesis was that there is no difference between newly cancer-diagnosed patients in 2022 at the age of 55 and younger who received at least one dose of the vaccine against COVID-19 compared to the same population with the same parameters, who did not receive a single dose to refute the influence of vaccination on the possible occurrence of selected tumors. 

Results: In total, by the end of 2022, according to Our World in Data, 57.6% of the total population in Croatia is considered to have received at least one dose. The median share of the population that received at least one dose is calculated; for 18-59 years was 61.32% and for 15-59 years was 55.34%, respectively. In monitoring the possible negative effects of the applied epidemiological measures during the pandemic, it is extremely important to monitor the outcomes based on the set possible outcome scenarios. 

There are two scenarios in which it would be assumed that the epidemiological measures applied have no influence and then the proportion of vaccinated and unvaccinated newly cancer-diagnosed patients would have to be the same under the condition the total number in that group of cancers did not increase in comparison to the previous period, e.g. the year 2020 and earlier. 

If it had a protective effect with the condition that the number of the total group population in the observed period is not greater than the previous one, the share of the vaccinated observed population would have to be lower. 

The results showed an increased total number of new carcinoma-diagnosed in 2022 (in total, and by exclusion criteria), in comparison for example in 2021.  

The third scenario meets the conditions of a higher total number in the group of newly cancer-diagnosed in the observed population stratified by age. 

It is very important to note that the total number of newly diagnosed cancers increased in the observed period, and the larger share of the vaccinated population in newly diagnosed cancers (65%) shows an unusual mismatching share with the age-stratified shares in the population (for ages 18-59 of 61.32% or for ages 15-59 of 55.34%) as well those group is 45% higher in the total number of tumors in comparison to the group that received any dose. 

Conclusion: This pronounced signal of the observed population requires us to investigate more closely the possible contamination of the medical products received in comparison to those who did not receive those medical products. 

The probability that there is a greater number of genetic damages in the vaccinated group, or possible accumulated environmental damages that generated such a result before the medical product was administered, given that it is an age-stratified group of 55 years and younger, is probably very small. 

The entire Croatian population during the pandemic was subjected to the same epidemiological measures that included lockdowns, masks, disinfection, and distance keeping, and the differences were only in the application of an epidemiological measure, which is mRNA inoculation declared as a vaccine against COVID-19. 

Larger studies with a larger number of people will have to show whether it is a random sample or whether this pattern can be repeatedly detected in all health institutions that are accredited for tumor diagnosing.