COVID-19
Florida surgeon general asks FDA for answers after study allegedly finds DNA fragments in COVID shots

Florida’s Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo speaks during a press conference
From LifeSiteNews
‘The American people and the scientific community have a right to have all relevant information pertaining to the COVID-19 vaccines to properly inform individual decision making’
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Wednesday pushed the head of the FDA for answers regarding a preprint study that alleged the contamination of mRNA COVID-19 shots with plasmid DNA.
“The American people and the scientific community have a right to have all relevant information pertaining to the COVID-19 vaccines to properly inform individual decision making,” Dr. Ladapo wrote in the December 6 letter addressed to FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, MD, MACC.
On today's episode of: What the FDA… I asked @DrCaliff_FDA to address the DNA fragments detected in mRNA COVID shots & how they are hitchhiking into human cells. DNA integration into the human genome & oncogenesis are known risks, even acknowledged by @US_FDA in '07. pic.twitter.com/V7TBaeM1WN
— Joseph A. Ladapo, MD, PhD (@FLSurgeonGen) December 6, 2023
Ladapo, who has frequently resisted the prevailing narrative on COVID-19 vaccination — even warning young men not to get the shots at all — previously wrote to the CDC in May to share concerns about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 jabs, particularly in the context of their accelerated approval. He said he has not received a response to his inquiry.
In his December 6 letter to the FDA, the Sunshine State’s surgeon general wrote to share his concern about “the recent discovery of host cell DNA fragments within the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. This raises concerns regarding the presence of nucleic acid contaminants in the approved Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.”
As LifeSiteNews reported in October, a new preprint study claimed to have discovered “significant levels” of “plasmid DNA” in expired COVID-19 vaccines, impurities the researchers say may be linked to adverse events. The study, which is not yet peer-reviewed, calls for “further investigation” to corroborate the findings.
Authors David J. Speicher, Jessica Rose, L. Maria Gutschi, David M. Wiseman, Ph.D., and Kevin McKernan said in the 31-page study they had found “billions to hundreds of billions of DNA molecules per dose” that they gathered from “[e]xpired unopened vials of Pfizer-BioNTech [shots] … and Moderna Spikevax mRNA” jabs “obtained from various pharmacies in Ontario, Canada.”
According to the researchers, the “preliminary evidence … warrant[s] confirmation and further investigation.”
An earlier preprint in June published by McKernan and his fellow researchers alleged that a fragment of a “monkey virus” genome, SV40, had been discovered in the COVID-19 jabs. The study noted that SV40 had previously been discovered in polio vaccines in the 1950s and 1960s and was linked to cancer. However, Health Feedback has noted that the DNA found in the COVID jabs was only a “fragment” of that genome, and that it’s unclear whether SV40 causes cancer in humans (current research only supports risk of cancer in certain animals), LifeSiteNews previously reported.
Moreover, the polio jabs became contaminated due to the use of monkey kidney cells to grow the virus, per Health Feedback. Those cell cultures were not used in the making of the COVID shots, making it unclear how the SV40 contaminants got into the injections to begin with.
In Ladapo’s letter to the FDA, he cited 2007 guidance from the FDA itself that, he stated, raised the possibility that “DNA integration could theoretically impact a human’s oncogenes – the genes which can transform a healthy cell into a cancerous cell,” and could therefore “result in chromosomal instability.”
“The Guidance for Industry discusses biodistribution of DNA vaccines and how such integration could affect unintended parts of the body including blood, heart, brain, liver, kidney, bone marrow, ovaries/testes, lung, draining lymph nodes, spleen, the site of administration and subcutis at injection site,” he summarized.
RELATED: Florida surgeon general Joseph Ladapo warns against taking new COVID-19 shots
After laying out the guidance from the FDA on the potential risks of DNA contamination, Ladapo asked the agency to answer whether manufacturers of the drugs have “evaluated the risk of human genome integration or mutagenesis of residual DNA contaminants from the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines alongside the additional risk of DNA integration from the lipid nanoparticle delivery system and SV40 promoter/enhancer?”
“Has [the] FDA inquired any information from the drug manufacturers to investigate such risk?” he asked.
Ladapo also asked whether “FDA standards for acceptable and safe quantity of residual DNA (present as known contaminants in biological therapies) consider the lipid nanoparticle delivery system for the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines?” Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 jabs contain lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), which are “tiny balls of fat” that act as delivery mechanisms for the mRNA vaccine.
Florida’s surgeon general further inquired whether, given “the potentially wide biodistribution of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and DNA contaminants beyond the local injection site,” the FDA has “evaluated the risk of DNA integration in reproductive cells with respect to the lipid nanoparticle delivery system?”
Citing “the urgency of these questions due to the mass administration of these vaccines and currently unavailable data surrounding possible genomic effects,” Ladapo closed his letter by asking the FDA to respond to his questions in one week’s time (December 13) by sending a written response to both his “previous letter and the concerns I have outlined above.”
Dr. Ladapo, who earned his MD from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. from Harvard University, was appointed to lead Florida’s health department by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021. He quickly made a name for himself as something of a maverick among state health department officials for his resistance to the prevailing COVID-19 narrative, and he has consistently and publicly spoken out against COVID-19 jabs, lockdowns, and mask mandates.
COVID-19
Vaccines: Assessing Canada’s COVID Response

David Clinton
I planned to be “first in line” for the shots as soon as my age cohort became eligible. By early March however, COVID itself dropped by the house, leading to the most uncomfortable (although non life-threatening) week of my life.
It’s been five years since COVID hit and one part of me wants to stuff it all in a closet somewhere and forget about it. But perhaps certain events – and especially government errors and overreach – should be documented. So this post will identify actions at all levels of government from those early days that, given our understanding of the threat available through the benefit hindsight, were both misguided and damaging.
I haven’t completely forgotten the mood through the early months in 2020. Politicians faced near-unanimous public demand for an aggressive response. Much of that sentiment was the result of messaging coming from foreign governments (mostly in the U.S.). But the local sentiment was definitely there.
To be fair, Governments got some things right and, taking into account the chaos and uncertainty of those early months, even some of their mistakes were understandable. But it’s the job of government to lead. And to avoid making choices – even popular choices – that will lead to predictable harms.
Vaccine mandates starting in 2021 were a case in point. Federal authority largely stemmed from the 2005 Quarantine Act and the Contraventions Act that allowed officials to issue tickets for non-compliance with the Quarantine Act. Provincial mandates were based on laws like Ontario’s Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act. The question isn’t whether the mandates and their enforcement were legal, but whether they caused more harm than good.
As the first vaccines started arriving in Canada around February 2021, I planned to be “first in line” for the shots as soon as my age cohort became eligible. By early March however, COVID itself dropped by the house, leading to the most uncomfortable (although non life-threatening) week of my life.
After recovering, my family doctor advised me to wait three months before getting the shots so my body could get back to normal. During those months, I got access to preprint results from the Israeli study into natural immunity which showed that:
Natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity
Those results were later confirmed by CDC and NEJM studies, among others.
Given that context, I didn’t see any justification for exposing myself to even minimal health risks associated with vaccines. Which meant that, despite demonstrably posing no threat to public health, I would (at various times) be unable to:
- Board domestic commercial flights, VIA Rail, Rocky Mountaineer trains, and cruise ships within Canada
- Board international flights or trains departing Canada
- Freely return to Canada through an overland point of entry
- Upon return to Canada, bypass the 14 day quarantine under the Quarantine Act
- Upon return to Canada via air, bypass the three day quarantine in (expensive) government-approved hotels
- Engage in ‘non-essential” activities like restaurants, gyms, events (details varied from province to province)
- Enter Parliament
- Seek employment in federally regulated air, rail, and marine sectors
What should Canadian governments have done? Remove restrictions on individuals with natural immunity, obviously. Which, by the way, would have come with the valuable bonus of entirely avoiding the truckers protest and consequent confrontations.
If authorities were reluctant to take us at our word on immunity, they could have followed the European Union’s lead by emulating their Digital COVID Certificate for proof of recovery. Were they worried about people without immunity creating fake certificates? Hard to take that one seriously. There were more fake vaccine passports littering the streets of Ontario than abandoned Toronto Maple Leafs car window flags in a normal early May.
In the end, my own suffering was negligible. I didn’t really want to visit family in the U.S. all that much anyway. But for millions of other Canadians, the real-world stakes were far higher. And all that’s besides the billions of dollars wasted during those years’ government policies.
To be sure, resisting unscientific street-level calls for vaccine mandates would have required courage. But shouldn’t acts of courage be a source of pride for public officials?
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Addictions
New Report – Five years on: Tracing the costs of lockdowns

In 2019, 67 percent of Canadians rated their mental health as “very good or excellent.” By 2023, that figure had dropped to just 54 percent.
A new report from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms examines the immediate and long-term negative impacts of Covid lockdowns, including physical, social, and economic harms. It also underscores the lack of transparent, evidence-based analysis by governments to justify these measures.
The report details how policies introduced with the stated goal of saving lives came at an extraordinary cost to Canadians’ mental and physical health, access to healthcare, economic security, and civil liberties.
One of the most concerning findings is the sharp decline in Canadians’ mental health. In 2019, 67 percent of Canadians rated their mental health as “very good or excellent.” By 2023, that figure had dropped to just 54 percent.
Meanwhile, the number of Canadians reporting “fair or poor” mental health nearly doubled—from 8 percent to 15 percent. This trend was seen across all age groups, but especially among young adults.
Indeed, despite facing minimal risk from Covid, young Canadians suffered some of the most serious consequences of lockdown measures. Non-Covid deaths among Canadians under age 45 rose by 22 percent, driven by factors such as disease, addiction, delayed treatment, and suicide. Physical activity among youth dropped significantly during this period, while time spent on screens—such as cell phones, computers, and tablets—increased sharply. Up to 70 percent of children and teens reported experiencing anxiety, depression, or other serious mental health issues.
A particularly alarming trend was the surge in opioid-related deaths. From 2020 to 2023, annual opioid overdose deaths increased by 108 percent. In 2023 alone, 8,606 Canadians died from opioid toxicity—more than double the pre-lockdown average. British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario recorded the highest rates, with the vast majority of deaths involving fentanyl.
During Covid, thousands of medical check-ups, diagnoses, and treatments were delayed or cancelled, resulting in a serious and ongoing backlog in Canada’s healthcare system.
Wait times for medical treatments increased by 43 percent between 2019 and 2024, reaching a median of 30 weeks. MRI wait times rose by 55 percent. For certain cancers, including breast and prostate, surgery delays increased by as much as 34 percent. Since 2018, more than 74,000 Canadians have died while waiting for surgery or diagnostic care—over 15,000 of them in 2023–24 alone. The actual number is likely higher, due to poor provincial tracking and reporting.
The economic impact was equally severe. Lockdowns resulted in widespread job losses, particularly among low-wage workers, while the “laptop class” remained largely unscathed. While many public sector jobs expanded during this time, Canadians in hospitality, retail, and service sectors faced prolonged unemployment. The expansion of public spending and government debt contributed to rising inflation, driving up the cost of food, housing, and other essentials.
Crime rates also rose during the lockdown years. Homicides peaked in 2022 at 17 percent above trend, with 882 victims across Canada. Cybercrime nearly doubled, rising from 48,000 cases in 2019 to over 93,000 in 2023. Identity theft and fraud increased to 120 percent above trend in 2020, with similar levels in the following years. Particularly troubling was the rise in online child sexual exploitation, which reached 18,650 reported cases in 2023—a 173 percent increase from 2019.
Benjamin Klassen, Education Coordinator at the Justice Centre, says the findings demand accountability. “This report calls for governments to take responsibility for the damage done during this period and ensure that future public health policies uphold the Charter rights and freedoms of all Canadians.”
Mr. Klassen continues, “The Charter requires governments to ‘demonstrably’ justify any freedom-limiting policy. To date, no federal or provincial government in Canada has conducted the kind of comprehensive impact assessment required to justify the lockdowns.”
He concludes, “The evidence is clear: the harms of lockdowns outweighed their benefits. Canadians deserve an honest and transparent evaluation of lockdown harms, so that these mistakes are never repeated.”
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