COVID-19
COVID-19 inquiry in UK asks whether ‘terrible consequences’ could have been avoided

By Jill Lawless in London
LONDON (AP) — A mammoth three-year public inquiry into the U.K. government’s handling of the response to COVID-19 opened Tuesday by asking whether suffering and death could have been avoided with better planning.
Lawyer Hugo Keith, who is counsel to the inquiry, said the coronavirus pandemic had brought “death and illness on an unprecedented scale” in modern Britain. He said that COVID-19 has been recorded as a cause of death for 226,977 people in the U.K.
“The key issue is whether that impact was inevitable,” Keith said. “Were those terrible consequences inexorable, or were they avoidable or capable of mitigation?”
A group of people who lost relatives to COVID-19 held pictures of their loved one outside the inquiry venue, an anonymous London office building. The first day of public hearings began with a 17-minute video in which people described the devastating impact of the pandemic on them and their loved ones.
Britain’s pandemic death toll is one of the highest in Europe, and the decisions of then Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government have been endlessly debated. Johnson agreed in late 2021 to hold an inquiry after pressure from bereaved families.
The inquiry, led by retired judge Heather Hallett, is due to hold hearings until 2026. It is due to investigate the U.K.’s preparedness for a pandemic, how the government responded and what lessons can be learned for the future.
Senior scientists and officials including Johnson are expected to appear as witnesses. Hallett, who has the power to summon evidence and question witnesses under oath, is currently in a legal battle with the government over her request to see an unedited trove of notebooks, diaries and WhatsApp messages between Johnson and other officials.
U.K. public inquiries are often thorough, but rarely quick. An inquiry into the 2003 Iraq war and its aftermath began in 2009 and issued its 2.6-million word report in 2016.
Hallett says she will release findings after each section rather than waiting until hearings conclude.
Keith said the first section would look at whether British planning relied too heavily on the mistaken assumption a future pandemic would resemble influenza.
He said that at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, the government had said that “the United Kingdom was well prepared to respond in a way that offered substantial protection to the public.”
“Even at this stage, before hearing the evidence, it is apparent that we might not have been very well prepared at all,” he said.
Keith also said planning for Britain’s exit from the European Union after voters backed Brexit in a 2016 referendum distracted resources from work to prepare for potential pandemics.
“That departure required an enormous amount of planning and preparation, particularly to address what were likely to be the severe consequences of a no-deal exit on food and medicine supplies, travel and transport, business borders and so on,” he said.
“It is clear that such planning, from 2018 onwards, crowded out and prevented some or perhaps a majority of the improvements that central government itself understood were required to be made to resilience planning and preparedness.”
COVID-19
Second Massive Population Study Finds COVID-19 “Vaccines” Increase Risk of 6 Major Cancers

South Korea study of 8.4 million adults finds higher risks of overall, lung, prostate, thyroid, gastric, colorectal, and breast cancers — across both mRNA and viral-vector platforms.
About a month ago, the first-ever population cohort study reported increased cancer risks following COVID-19 vaccination. In Italy, nearly 300,000 residents were tracked for 30 months, showing that mRNA shots significantly increased the risk of overall cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, and colorectal cancer.
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Now, a second—and far larger—population-based cohort study by Kim et al from South Korea has corroborated and expanded upon those findings. Drawing on a massive sample of more than 8.4 million people, this is one of the most powerful cancer-safety datasets ever analyzed.
The results are striking. After accounting for age, sex, comorbidities, income level, and prior COVID-19 infection, COVID-19 vaccination was linked to significant increases in multiple major cancers, with the signal consistent across all vaccine platforms, both sexes, and age groups:
Study Design at a Glance
- Design & data: Population-based retrospective cohort using the Korean National Health Insurance database (2021–2023).
- Population: 8,407,849 adults.
- Exposure: COVID-19 vaccination (analyzed overall and by platform: mRNA, cDNA, and heterologous schedules).
- Matching: Large-scale propensity score matching (1:4 vaccinated:unvaccinated for the main analysis; 1:2 within vaccinated for booster vs non-booster).
- Modeling: Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models (adjusted for age, sex, comorbidity index, income level, and prior COVID-19 infection), estimating hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs); analyses stratified by sex and age.
- Outcome window: 1-year incidence of overall and site-specific cancers post-vaccination.
Key Results — Cancers with Significant Increases (1-year follow-up)
- Overall cancer: HR 1.27 (95% CI, 1.21–1.33) → 27% higher risk of all cancers combined in vaccinated vs. unvaccinated at 1 year.
- Lung cancer: HR 1.53 (95% CI, 1.25–1.87) → 53% higher risk
- Prostate cancer: HR 1.69 (1.35–2.11) → 69% higher risk
- Thyroid cancer: HR 1.35 (1.21–1.51) → 35% higher risk
- Gastric (stomach) cancer: HR 1.34 (1.13–1.58) → 34% higher risk
- Colorectal cancer: HR 1.28 (1.12–1.47) → 28% higher risk
- Breast cancer: HR 1.20 (1.07–1.34) → 20% higher risk
Interpretation: An HR of 1.53 for lung cancer means that vaccinated individuals developed lung cancer at a rate 53% higher than matched unvaccinated peers, over the same one-year follow-up period. Similar interpretations apply to each cancer type.
By Vaccine Platform
- cDNA vaccines (AstraZeneca type): linked to higher risks of thyroid, gastric, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers.
- Overall cancer HR 1.47 (95% CI 1.39–1.56) → 47% higher risk
- mRNA vaccines (Pfizer/Moderna): linked to higher risks of thyroid, colorectal, lung, and breast cancers.
- Overall cancer HR 1.20 (95% CI 1.14–1.26) → 20% higher risk
- Heterologous (mixed schedules): linked to higher risks of thyroid and breast cancers.
- Overall cancer HR 1.34 (95% CI 1.21–1.48) → 34% higher risk
Interpretation: The elevated cancer risks were not confined to one vaccine platform. Whether adenoviral-vector (cDNA), mRNA, or mixed schedules, each vaccine type was associated with a measurable increase in overall cancer — and each had specific cancer sites driving the signal. In other words, no vaccine technology was free of cancer risk in this dataset.
Booster-Dose Analysis
- Gastric cancer: HR 1.23 (p = 0.041) → 23% higher risk with boosters
- Pancreatic cancer: HR 2.25 (p < 0.001) → 125% higher risk with boosters
Interpretation: Booster doses were associated with notably higher risks of gastric and pancreatic cancers. For pancreatic cancer, the risk more than doubled in boosted individuals.
Overall Cancer Trends/Sex & Age Stratification
- Overall cancer: Incidence was higher in the vaccinated across every demographic group.
- Women showed the highest relative burden, with 48.4 per 10,000 vaccinated vs. 38.2 per 10,000 unvaccinated at one year.
- Elderly adults (≥75 years) carried the greatest absolute burden, at 119.9 per 10,000 vaccinated vs. 91.7 per 10,000 unvaccinated.
- Younger adults (<65 years) also experienced a clear overall increase, despite lower baseline rates.
- Site-specific patterns:
- Men: elevated risks for gastric and lung cancers
- Women: elevated risks for thyroid and colorectal cancers
- Under 65 years: stronger signals for thyroid and breast cancers
- ≥75 years: markedly higher risk of prostate cancer
Interpretation: Both the overall and site-specific results show a consistent pattern — every demographic group experienced elevated cancer risks, though the type and absolute burden varied. Women and the elderly were hit hardest, but no population segment was spared.
Taken together, the evidence is now impossible to ignore. The only two population-level cohort studies ever conducted on COVID-19 vaccination and cancer — one in Italy and one in South Korea — have both found major increases in cancer risk. The Italian study (≈300,000 people, 30-month follow-up) identified significant elevations in overall cancer, breast, bladder, and colorectal cancers. The South Korean study (8.4 million people, 1-year follow-up) confirmed and expanded these findings, documenting increased risks of overall cancer plus six site-specific cancers (lung, prostate, thyroid, gastric, colorectal, and breast).
Critically, the signal was observed across all vaccine types — both mRNA and viral-vector (cDNA) shots — and in every demographic group analyzed. In plain terms: both major COVID-19 vaccine platforms appear to be carcinogenic
With two independent national datasets converging on the same conclusion, governments, regulators, clinicians, and researchers must confront a sobering reality: nearly 70% of the global population has been injected with a carcinogenic product. The evidence demands immediate market withdrawal of these products.
At the McCullough Foundation, we are deeply investigating both the molecular mechanisms and the population-level data linking COVID-19 vaccination to cancer. We are currently preparing several new studies to expand this critical line of evidence. This work requires substantial time, expertise, and resources, and we ask for your support in funding this urgent research: mcculloughfnd.org/products/
Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation
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COVID-19
Freedom Convoy leader Chris Barber fights to stop government from seizing his truck

From LifeSiteNews
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms filed a legal response against the Canadian government, which is attempting to take a semi used for Chris Barber’s trucking company.
Canada’s top constitutional legal group filed a legal response to try and stop the federal government from seizing Freedom Convoy leader Chris Barber’s semi-truck known as “Big Red.”
In an update on Thursday, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) said that lawyers for Barber officially filed a formal legal response regarding the Crown wanting to take away his truck, a 2004 Kenworth worth over $150,000 that he needs for his trucking company.
“I’ve worked hard all my life as a trucker, and ‘Big Red’ is the heart of my business,” said Barber, as noted by the JCCF, regarding the planned seizure of his truck.
“Taking it away wouldn’t just be punishing me — it would take away my ability to provide for my family and employees.”
Constitutional lawyer Diane Magas, as noted by the JCCF, said Big Red “was never a tool of crime. It is a working truck, directed by the police on where to park and moved when they asked.”
“Seizing the very vehicle that Chris and his family rely on to earn a living would devastate a legitimate Canadian business,” she added.
The Crown is also looking to seize Barber’s truck, which he used in the convoy, arguing that it is an “offence-related property,” and claiming that it was used in connection with committing an offense.
The JCCF is asking that the Crown’s application to seize “Big Red” should be dismissed.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian government is looking to put Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich in jail for no less than seven years and Barber for eight years for their roles in the 2022 protests against COVID mandates.
Also, the JCCF notes that Barber’s legal team has argued that the Ottawa police told him where to park his truck and, in fact, approved so-called “slow rolls” of his truck in the protests.
Magas noted that when it comes to the law, it “was never meant to strip Canadians of their livelihoods in such circumstances.”
Earlier this week, as reported by LifeSiteNews, Barber suggested he will need to obtain “security” for himself come his October 7 court date, to keep him safe from “crazy obsessed” people attacking him online.
The sentencing trial for Lich, the other Freedom Convoy leader, and Barber took place in July at a hearing. Earlier this year, they were found guilty of mischief in their roles in the 2022 convoy.
Both Lich and Barber were the main faces of the 2022 Freedom Convoy, which descended upon Ottawa demanding an end to all COVID mandates.
A sentencing hearing has been scheduled in their case for October 7 in Ottawa.
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