Correcting this week’s misinformation: week of April 16, 2026

In an interview with optical mouse inventor Steve Kirsch, RFK Jr. claims that the papers that come in vaccine packages admit that vaccines cause autism.

RFK Jr. says that “each of the 405 diseases that have become common since 1989 is listed as a side effect in vaccine inserts.” But this mixes up two different ideas.

Vaccine inserts do not list only side effects. They list something called adverse events. An adverse event is anything that happens after a vaccine is given, whether or not the vaccine caused it. A person could get sick days or weeks after a vaccine for reasons that have nothing to do with the shot. It still might get reported and added to the list.

Here’s a simple example: a Hepatitis B (Hep B) vaccine insert lists “herpes zoster” (shingles, which comes from the chickenpox virus) as an adverse event. But the Hep B vaccine does not contain that virus. So it cannot directly cause shingles. It just means someone developed shingles sometime after getting the vaccine.

The same idea applies when autism is mentioned. It can be reported after vaccination, but that does not mean the vaccine caused it. The question of whether vaccines cause autism has been studied for many years. Scientists have looked at this very carefully, and the answer has stayed the same: vaccines do not cause autism.

The claim first came from a 1998 paper by a doctor named Andrew Wakefield. Later, researchers found that the paper used false information. Because of this, the journal removed it, and Wakefield lost his medical license.

Since then, many large, careful studies have been done. Some followed hundreds of thousands of children. For example, one study in Denmark tracked more than 650,000 children. These studies found no difference in autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

Scientists have also learned more about autism itself. Autism begins very early in development, often before a baby is born. Brain differences linked to autism start forming in the womb. Genetics (the traits we inherit from our parents) also plays a big role.

Because vaccines are given after birth, they cannot be the cause of autism.

In an interview on Mike Lindell’s station, a McCullough Foundation scientist claims that COVID vaccines cause cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, bladder, stomach, lung, and thyroid.

Cancer happens when cells grow and divide out of control. This usually happens because of changes in DNA (called mutations) that affect how a cell works. Vaccines do not change our DNA or the basic structure of our cells.

Dr. Paul Offit explains why the small pieces of DNA in COVID mRNA vaccines cannot harm us. Our cells have strong defenses that protect us:

• First, enzymes (special proteins that break things down) in the cell destroy foreign DNA.
• Second, these DNA pieces do not have the signal needed to enter the nucleus (the part of the cell where our DNA is kept).
• Third, they do not have an enzyme called integrase, which would be needed to attach to our DNA.

Because of these protections, these DNA pieces cannot change our genes or cause cancer. There is also no good scientific evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause “turbo cancer” or any other type of cancer.

The scientist points to a study from South Korea that suggests COVID vaccines might raise cancer risk. But experts say this study has serious problems.

The researchers did not consider important factors. For example, people who get vaccines often go to the doctor more and get more cancer screenings (tests to look for cancer). This can make it seem like more cancers are happening, even when they are just being found more often.

The study also followed people for a very short time—sometimes only a month, and at most a year. Cancer usually takes many years to develop, so this is not long enough to show a real link.

There is still no evidence that COVID vaccines cause cancer. Many of the strongest cancer-causing agents (called carcinogens) take years to lead to cancer.

Also, cancers in younger people have been rising since the early 1990s. This increase started long before COVID vaccines existed.

Former ACIP member Robert Malone claims that Dr. Marty Makary is hiding proof that COVID vaccines caused the deaths of ten children.

These claims are based on information from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (or VAERS). It is an early warning system run by the government that anyone can look at.

Anyone can report a health problem to VAERS if it happens after a vaccine. This includes doctors, patients, and family members. But it is important to understand this: a VAERS report does not prove the vaccine caused the problem. It only shows that something happened after vaccination.

For example, if someone gets sick or even dies after a vaccine, it can be reported to VAERS, even if the illness had nothing to do with the vaccine. This helps scientists look for patterns. If many similar reports appear, researchers study them more carefully to see if there is a real link.

On its own, VAERS cannot show that a vaccine caused harm. It is just a starting point for further research.