Study’s cancer rate rise not linked to COVID vaccines
Nik Dirga
June 27, 2025
WHAT WAS CLAIMED
A study’s reported rise in cancer rates is explained by the COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
OUR VERDICT
False. The study was done before COVID-19 vaccine mandates were introduced.
AAP FactCheck – It is being falsely implied that COVID-19 vaccines explain a study’s reported rise in cancer rates in Australia.
However, the research on bowel cancer rates is based on data from 1990 to 2020, before COVID-19 vaccines were introduced.
A Facebook post1 features a screenshot from a news report about a study that found an increase in bowel cancer diagnoses among younger Australians.
The screenshot depicts a woman lying in a hospital bed and the headline “Australia sets world’s worst cancer rate – as possible surge revealed”.
The post is captioned by a Facebook user: “Ironically, Australia also had some of the strictest v@ccine mandates”.
Various posts with similar captions have been widely shared on Facebook and appear to originate from a June 15 post 2on an X account.
The Daily Mail article 3referenced in the post discusses research from the University of Melbourne that found bowel cancer diagnoses have more than doubled for Australians below the age of 50 over the last three decades.
Nowhere in the Daily Mail article are COVID vaccines mentioned, nor are they mentioned in the study4 cited.
The preprint article looked at how many Australians between 20 and 49 were diagnosed with early-onset bowel cancer between 1990 and 2020.
The first COVID vaccines weren’t rolled out in Australia until February 20215, well after the time frame of the study.
There have also been multiple studies on rising bowel cancer rates among younger people in parts of the world outside Australia, such as this one in the Lancet6 and one from the University of Otago7 in New Zealand.
The Melbourne study makes no conclusions about why bowel cancer rates are rising in Australia and says there’s a “need to identify factors driving these trends.”
The post is one of many that attempt to link COVID vaccines to other ailments, such as cancer in children8 and nonexistent syndromes like ‘VAIDS’9 and ‘turbo cancer’10 – all of which have been debunked by AAP FactCheck in the past.
AAP FactCheck is an accredited member of the International Fact-Checking Network11. To keep up with our latest fact checks, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Threads12, X, BlueSky13, TikTok14 and YouTube15. (AAP)
