Health
Cancer drug pioneer praises RFK Jr., suggests link between childhood cancer and COVID shots
From LifeSiteNews
Trump nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy received a ringing endorsement from a medical pioneer, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who said the country needs to take seriously a possible link between the COVID-19 shots and childhood cancer.
Trump nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received a ringing endorsement from an acclaimed medical expert on Tuesday who said the country needs to take seriously a possible link between the COVID-19 shots and childhood cancer.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is a billionaire who pioneered the cancer drug Abraxane and has owned and led multiple medical companies. In 2018, he purchased the Los Angeles Times (which he blocked from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris for president in 2024), and his ImmunityBio was among the companies recruited by the Trump administration to contribute to Operation Warp Speed.
On Tuesday, Soon-Shiong appeared on the 2WAY podcast, where he shared his thoughts about some of the big medical policy questions of the next four years.
“I think people misunderstand Bobby Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy. He’s really all about the science,” he said. “I’ve sat down with him, met with him for the first time. I’ve not known him until I sat down with him, because I wanted to understand what he was thinking. And after hours of sitting down with him, I was so impressed. He knows more about the science than most doctors.”
Soon-Shiong went on to say “we’re going to have to address the rising incidence of cancer. For the first time in my career, I’ve seen an 8-year-old, 9-year-old, 10-year-old with colon cancer. The first time in my career, I’ve had a 13-year-old child in our clinic die of metastatic pancreatic cancer. We have to face this effectiveness and reality.”
The doctor ended on an optimistic note, saying that “there are effective therapies because we understand the science in such an immense way,” and adding that he is “excited about this next four years of bringing this information across and not to scare the population to say, look, we could lead the world in our innovation and using healthcare as a foreign policy around the world.”
A large body of evidence identifies significant risks to the COVID shots, which were developed and reviewed in a fraction of the time vaccines usually take under Operation Warp Speed.
The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports 38,264 deaths, 219,594 hospitalizations, 22,134 heart attacks, and 28,814 myocarditis and pericarditis cases as of December 27, among other ailments. CDC researchers have recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than over-reporting.
An analysis of 99 million people across eight countries published in February in the journal Vaccine “observed significantly higher risks of myocarditis following the first, second and third doses” of mRNA-based COVID shots, as well as signs of increased risk of “pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and cerebral venous sinus thrombosis,” and other “potential safety signals that require further investigation.” In April, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions, and a study out of Japan found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after third doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 injections and offered several theories for a causal link.
Earlier this month, a long-awaited Florida grand jury report on the COVID shot manufacturers found that there were “profound and serious issues” in pharmaceutical companies’ review process, including reluctance to share what evidence of adverse events they found.
All eyes are currently on Trump and his health team, which will be helmed by Kennedy at HHS. As one of the country’s most vocal critics of the COVID establishment and vaccines more generally, his nomination brought hope that the second Trump administration will take a critical reassessment of the shots that the returning president has previously embraced, although most of Kennedy’s comments since joining Trump have focused on other issues, such as conventional vaccines and harmful food additives.
Trump has given mixed signals as to the prospects of reconsidering the shots and has nominated both critics and defenders of establishment COVID measures for a number of administration roles.
From the Fraser Institute
Canadians continue to endure long wait times for health care. And while waiting for care can obviously be detrimental to your health and wellbeing, it can also hurt your pocketbook.
In 2024, the latest year of available data, the median wait—from referral by a family doctor to treatment by a specialist—was 30 weeks (including 15 weeks waiting for treatment after seeing a specialist). And last year, an estimated 1.5 million Canadians were waiting for care.
It’s no wonder Canadians are frustrated with the current state of health care.
Again, long waits for care adversely impact patients in many different ways including physical pain, psychological distress and worsened treatment outcomes as lengthy waits can make the treatment of some problems more difficult. There’s also a less-talked about consequence—the impact of health-care waits on the ability of patients to participate in day-to-day life, work and earn a living.
According to a recent study published by the Fraser Institute, wait times for non-emergency surgery cost Canadian patients $5.2 billion in lost wages in 2024. That’s about $3,300 for each of the 1.5 million patients waiting for care. Crucially, this estimate only considers time at work. After also accounting for free time outside of work, the cost increases to $15.9 billion or more than $10,200 per person.
Of course, some advocates of the health-care status quo argue that long waits for care remain a necessary trade-off to ensure all Canadians receive universal health-care coverage. But the experience of many high-income countries with universal health care shows the opposite.
Despite Canada ranking among the highest spenders (4th of 31 countries) on health care (as a percentage of its economy) among other developed countries with universal health care, we consistently rank among the bottom for the number of doctors, hospital beds, MRIs and CT scanners. Canada also has one of the worst records on access to timely health care.
So what do these other countries do differently than Canada? In short, they embrace the private sector as a partner in providing universal care.
Australia, for instance, spends less on health care (again, as a percentage of its economy) than Canada, yet the percentage of patients in Australia (33.1 per cent) who report waiting more than two months for non-emergency surgery was much higher in Canada (58.3 per cent). Unlike in Canada, Australian patients can choose to receive non-emergency surgery in either a private or public hospital. In 2021/22, 58.6 per cent of non-emergency surgeries in Australia were performed in private hospitals.
But we don’t need to look abroad for evidence that the private sector can help reduce wait times by delivering publicly-funded care. From 2010 to 2014, the Saskatchewan government, among other policies, contracted out publicly-funded surgeries to private clinics and lowered the province’s median wait time from one of the longest in the country (26.5 weeks in 2010) to one of the shortest (14.2 weeks in 2014). The initiative also reduced the average cost of procedures by 26 per cent.
Canadians are waiting longer than ever for health care, and the economic costs of these waits have never been higher. Until policymakers have the courage to enact genuine reform, based in part on more successful universal health-care systems, this status quo will continue to cost Canadian patients.
Mackenzie Moir
Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser Institute
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