An 85-year-old woman whose breast cancer was in remission developed aggressive metastatic cancer one month after receiving her sixth mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dose. A peer-reviewed study concluded the cancer cells contained the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein from the vaccine, but not the nucleocapsid protein from natural infection.

An 85-year-old Japanese woman whose breast cancer was in remission developed an aggressive form of cancer one month after receiving her sixth mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dose — and her cancer cells tested positive for the same spike protein found in the shots, according to a new peer-reviewed study.

The study “provides direct biological evidence linking mRNA injections to cancer progression and metastasis,” epidemiologist Nicolas Hulscher wrote on Substack. Hulscher said the study’s findings are “striking … strongly suggesting the spike originated from the mRNA injection, not viral infection.”

The case report by Dr. Shigetoshi Sano, a professor of dermatology at the Kochi University Medical School in Japan, was published last week as a letter in the Journal of Dermatological Science.

According to the study, the patient was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022. She underwent a partial mastectomy and hormone therapy in April 2023, “after which she was deemed to be in remission.”

In October 2024, she received a Pfizer COVID-19 booster dose. One month later, she developed a skin lesion on her right chest. In January, the lesion was diagnosed as a skin metastasis from breast cancer.

Metastasis is when cancer cells break off from the original tumor and spread to other parts of the body.

A biopsy found that the metastatic cancer cells tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein found in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, but were negative for the nucleocapsid protein found in people who have recovered from viral infection.

Clinical educator Dr. Margaret Christensen, co-founder of the Carpathia Collaborative, said the study “is just one of thousands of case reports of unusual and aggressive cancers showing up in unexpected populations.”

Christensen said:

“Prior to COVID-19, post-menopausal women had much slower-growing tumors that were less likely to be deadly. Now … we are seeing devastating effects in all age groups.

“This foreign technology causes both immune suppression of the innate immune system, which goes after cancer cells, as well as overactivation of the adaptive branch of the immune system, leading to severe inflammation, auto-antibodies and cytokine production. No wonder we are seeing devastating effects in the population.”

According to the study, the patient recovered after radiation therapy.

Spike protein in metastatic cells ‘completely unprecedented observation’

According to Sano, there have been “accumulating reports” in Japan about the COVID-19 vaccines’ “potential adverse effects in a variety of organs including skin.”

Recent studies bolster the reports and suggest the COVID-19 vaccines may create an environment that promotes the growth of cancer cells and that “predisposes cancer-bearing patients to cancer progression,” Sano wrote. He said the prevalence of spike protein-related adverse events has led to a new term, “spikeopathy.”

The spike protein’s involvement in carcinogenic mechanisms is “particularly worrisome,” Sano wrote.

Cancer cells “may absorb circulating spike protein — produced post-vaccination — from the bloodstream or microenvironment,” said immunologist and biochemist Jessica Rose, Ph.D.

In the case of the 85-year-old patient, “a rare pattern of skin metastasis from breast cancer” developed adjacent to the mastectomy site, Sano said. This occurred even though “her primary breast cancer was successfully removed” in 2023.

Breast cancer “is the most common malignancy to metastasize to the skin,” Sano said. However, the unusually “short time frame between vaccination and the appearance of skin metastasis” prompted him to search for the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein.

Sano found that “the metastatic cancer cells in the dermis and epidermis were both stained for spike protein, but not for nucleocapsid protein of SARS-CoV-2 virus.” The cancer cells from the original breast cancer diagnosis “did not express nucleocapsid or spike protein,” he wrote.

According to Sano, the results are not fully conclusive because “the causal relationship” remains unclear. However, the findings “strongly suggested” that the spike protein in the metastatic cancer cells was related to the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.

The “presence of spike protein but not nucleocapsid protein expression in cancer cells is a novel finding as far as we know,” Sano wrote.

Hulscher called the finding “a completely unprecedented observation.”

The results indicate that there is “zero” chance the spike protein that was identified resulted from a viral infection, Rose said. She noted that if the spike protein had resulted from a COVID-19 infection, nucleocapsids would have been detected in the patient.

‘A lot of things must go wrong for a cell to become a cancer cell’

Sano identified three ways the mRNA COVID-19 vaccination could have caused the patient’s metastasis.

These include genomic integration of mRNA or of DNA contaminants in the vaccine; an adverse immune response impairing the body’s ability to prevent the development of tumors; or the modulation of estrogen receptors by spike proteins, contributing to “developing, aggravation or metastasis of breast cancer and ovarian cancer.”

“A lot of things must go wrong for a cell to become a cancer cell, growing unchecked,” said Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist for Children’s Health Defense (CHD). “They do not behave like normal cells. All three of Dr. Sano’s potential explanations are possible.”

According to the study, spike protein was found in the nucleus of the metastatic cancer cells. Christensen said this indicates that “spike mRNA technology has been introduced into our genomes.”

In 2023, DNA contaminants — including simian virus 40 (SV40), a DNA virus known to be cancer-promoting — were discovered in the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Rose said SV40 “could disrupt gene regulation by integrating near or within oncogenes [cells that can become cancerous] or tumor suppressor genes.”

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD’s chief scientific officer, said the study’s results indicate a strong likelihood that mRNA vaccines are connected to metastatic cancer. He said:

“Given the timing of the appearance of skin cancer, it seems likely that it was caused by the booster shot, but the smoking gun that I didn’t see in the paper was whether the patient was also expressing spike protein in other, non-cancerous tissues and/or within her bloodstream.

“However, there is no doubt in my mind that the presence of spike protein, at a minimum, exacerbated the situation leading to skin cancer.”

Patient received shots from Pfizer batches linked to serious reactions

The study’s supplemental data contained information about the dates the patient was vaccinated and the batch numbers of the vaccine doses she received.

The patient received the initial two-dose series of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in May and June 2021. She received booster doses in February, July and November 2022 and in October 2024. Her July 2022 shot was a Moderna booster, but the others were Pfizer shots.

The batch numbers of all her Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses are linked to serious adverse events in some recipients.

The patient received batch number LK7363 of the Pfizer vaccine one month before the onset of metastatic cancer.

According to “How Bad Is My Batch?” that batch has been associated with one life-threatening illness, two hospitalizations and 22 other adverse events, including Behcet syndrome, a rare inflammatory disorder.

The other Pfizer vaccine batches the patient received are associated with a higher number of adverse events and deaths, according to the “How Bad Is My Batch?” database. These include:

• May 2021: Pfizer batch number EW4811, associated with 41 deaths, 58 disabilities, 40 life-threatening illnesses, 336 hospitalizations and 724 other adverse events.
• June 2021: Pfizer batch number FA4597, associated with 39 deaths, 26 disabilities, 28 life-threatening illnesses, 166 hospitalizations and 249 other adverse events.
• February 2022: Pfizer batch number FL7646, associated with 13 deaths, 11 disabilities, 5 life-threatening illnesses, 31 hospitalizations and 29 other adverse events.
• November 2022: Pfizer batch number GJ1852, associated with 9 deaths, 3 disabilities, 3 life-threatening illnesses, 19 hospitalizations and 23 other adverse events.

The batch-related data for the patient’s Moderna vaccine is not available.

In 2023, a team of Danish scientists uncovered evidence that a significant percentage of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine batches resulted in higher-than-normal severe adverse events.

Hooker said it was concerning that physicians continued to administer COVID-19 vaccine doses to the patient, even after her original cancer diagnosis.

“I’m dismayed that anyone in the medical profession would recommend a COVID-19 shot for any recovering cancer patient, especially with breast cancer that can and will metastasize into skin cancer,” Hooker said.

Study indicates need to test for spike protein in cancer patients

Sano said his findings justify further research into the relationship between the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and cancer or metastasis.

“Studying spike protein in a large number of cancer specimens that rapidly developed or worsened after mRNA vaccination will clarify the correlation and provide significant insights for oncogenic potential,” Sano wrote.

Christensen said the case study shows “how critical it is to start testing for and staining tissues for the spike mRNA in all cancer cases, especially in young people.”

Jablonowski agreed. “A population-wide staining for spike and nucleocapsid proteins in cancer tissue samples may show revealing patterns between infections, vaccines and disease,” he said.

Sano previously published two peer-reviewed studies that identified an association between the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and “intractable, persistent skin diseases, in which mRNA vaccine-derived spike protein was found.”

Sano’s findings build on other recent studies connecting mRNA vaccines to a higher risk of cancer and other serious adverse events.

A study of 8 million South Koreans published last month in the journal Biomarker Research found that COVID-19 vaccines and boosters — both mRNA and non-mRNA — pose an increased risk of six types of cancer, including a 20% higher risk of breast cancer and a 27% higher risk of cancer overall.

An analysis of a Japanese database of 18 million people earlier this year showed that people who received COVID-19 vaccines had a significantly higher risk of death in the first year after vaccination compared to the unvaccinated. The risk increased with each additional dose.

A 30-month study of nearly 300,000 people in Italy, published in the journal EXCLI in July, found a 23% increased cancer risk following one or two doses of the COVID-19 shot and an additional 9% higher risk for those who received three or more doses.

Hooker said the results of the new study strengthen growing calls for the suspension or withdrawal of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. He said:

“This study is another piece of evidence to enact a ban on these shots. The combination of spikeopathy and the introduction of exogenous modified mRNA is a one-two punch that causes significant damage, especially in individuals that continue to receive booster shots.”