Need to refine an argument against an (almost) anti-vaxxer

[nomadreid]

TL;DR Summary

(1) Obviously, there has been no evidence of an mRNA vaccine causing cancer. Is there an even stronger argument that says that an mRNA Covid vaccine cannot cause cancer? (2) If a causal link were established between the worsening of a lymphoma and an mRNA vaccine, would this weaken the above argument?

I am trying to build an argument against a friend (F) who is presently not an anti-vaxxer, but is heading in that direction when he told me that a friend (FF) of his told him (F) that his (FF’s) doctor told him that his Covid mRNA vaccine caused his lymphoma. Of course, FF either misinterpreted the doctor, or made a correlation/causation mess himself. (I am assuming that FF really does have lymphoma, and that it isn’t a false positive:

https://www.itnonline.com/article/covid-19-vaccine-can-cause-false-positive-cancer-diagnosis )

Possibly the doctor told FF that the vaccine made an existing lymphoma worse (although I do not know whether this possibility, raised in the article

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.798095/full

has been confirmed, disproven, or is still an open question), and FF went from “made worse” to “caused”.

Or maybe either FF or the doctor misinterpreted something like this

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6527314/

without noticing that the mRNA used in COVID-19 vaccines and the mRNA used in this research are not directly connected. (Although I tend towards not blaming the doctor, because if any doctor actually found a real case, she could publish! But apparently that hasn’t happened….)

But to say that these arguments are wrong does not eliminate the logical possibility, as the argument “None of the vaccines interact with or alter your DNA in any way, and therefore cannot cause cancer.” presented in this popular article:

https://www.mskcc.org/coronavirus/myths-about-covid-19-vaccines

seems too simplistic to me – but then, what do I know, I am not a biologist.

Whatever the case, it would be ideal, if possible, to have an argument with almost mathematical certainty that an mRNA vaccine cannot cause the lymphoma. The desirability comes from the fact that one is hard pressed to counter a scientifically illiterate person’s belief in two arguments

(a) anecdotal evidence (neither F nor FF have any scientific background whatsoever), especially when the anecdotal evidence comes from a personal (i.e,, the old-fashioned kind, not social media) friend, and

(b) “Absence of proof is not proof of absence”, not understanding the point, for example, of Russell’s teapot.

Therefore, I would like to know whether those more familiar with molecular biology can suggest a stronger argument that I can produce for F that FF must somehow be mistaken. Thanks in advance.

 

[jim mcnamara]

Your question is all over the place - therefore hard to answer

Lymphoma treatments can impair Covid mRNA vaccine efficacy. The exact opposite of what you seem to ask:
https://www.lls.org/who-we-are/covid-19-vaccines-faq-patients-and-caregivers

Another review article with broad coverage of:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8958822/

The big problem with your question is: everyone's assumption that cancer is 'one disease'. Flat WRONG.
Of the large number of possible lymphomas, bCell (part of the immune system) lymphoma disease treatments efficacy can be negatively affected by mRNA Covid vaccines:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9377515/

So attributing this response to all types of lymphoma cancers is what non-scientists do with something like this.

You are likely fighting a losing battle unless they have scientific training. People in general think in terms of anecdotal evidence.
They do NOT get scientific research,
Example of the problem you describe:
I know person A who knows person B, whose father has lymphoma and who got sicker as a result of Covid vaccination. Therefore: Covid vaccines make cancer patients worse. Precisely what an anti-vaxxer and your friend will conclude. Inductive reasoning.

This is inductive reasoning: Anecdote -> global "truth"
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=inductive+vs+deductive
Good luck...

 

[hutchphd]

Let us not forget Nikki Minaj...

 

[Godot_]

Re. the OP-question:

a) Every infection can cause a lymphoma to manifest. (A vaccination is quasi a simulated infection, and mRNA vaccines are no different there...) As to why: Infections cause a cytokine release to trigger the grand scale cellular immune response. Pre-cancerous lymphatic cells need that to proliferate, and then do so. Thus when they start to divide, some of them will acquire their last few mutations - DNA-replication is an imprecise thing, there always are some bugs - and take the last few steps to full malignancy. The degeneration to those pre-cancerous states, however, has to happen way before that.

b) While there are certain cancers where a certain etiology is assured to be the most frequent cause - like HPV 16 / 18 for cervix-Ca, asbestos for pleura mesothelioma or even for primary effusion lymphoma, which is most often caused by HHV 8 (not mRNA vax) - no doc can know what causes an (unspecified) lymphoma without sequencing, or in certain lymphoma types at least a chromosome stain. And in the latter case that cannot be caused by a mere vaccination, even if the specialists for bullshitology believe something different...

c) I'm not going into the mol-biol, but without an HIV infection or another retrovirus causing the cells to provide reverse transcriptase, there's to my knowledge no known instance (read: not a chance) that an mRNA causes DNA issues [Edit: unless it's an mRNA encoding some nuclear protein, like a transcription factor or regulator peptide - those, too are synthesized in the cytosol]. So, unless her doc has access to arcane, unpublished research sitting on hold or in the pipeline for publication... And even there, this would demand that there's a recent infection of the cell by HIV and/or its active replication.

I'll skip stuff like cum-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc fallacy etc., buuuuuuut... ...IMHO the most plausible (unmentioned) backstory seems to probably be:

z) The doctrine among oncologists is to get a good rapport with the patient, as a good doctor-patient relationship is really helpful in the long treatment schedules being the standard in the field. In order to get this, it's ofc wise not to get into arguments with the patients*... So if the patient says: "My cancer has been caused by this-and-that", "I believe my cancer has has been caused by this-and-that" a good oncologist will probably say: "Ooooh-kayyyy...", jot that down in the documentation in quotes, and pass on. Or, eg. if the patient asks "Could it be that my canver has been caused by this-and-that?" say "Mmmmmaybeee" and pass on. Because, (unless it's potentially and plausibly caused by something like workplace exposure) when all is said and done, it's totally irrelevant, a moot point.

-----------------------------

* I made the acquaintance of a patient with breast cancer whose ... erm ... etiologic hypothesis for that was that it's been caused when she got hit by a wave while swimming in the sea, half a year ago. For her type of carcinoma, the cells are known to divide about once every six months, and a palpable tumor consists of a number of cells in the 5- to 6-digit range. Yes, it's exponential growth, but ... do the math.

 

[Tom.G]

Making lymphoma worse is addressed in this thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/posts/6803964/

Apparently it does occur. Here are a couple of articles found on the National Institutes of Health site (NIH.GOV):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9377515/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8656165/

(above, and many more, found with:
https://www.google.com/search?&q=lymphoma+and+covid+vaccine+site:nih.gov)

 

[nomadreid]

First, to all the posters (jim mcnamara, hutchphd, Godot_, Tom G.), many many thanks for your incredibly good and helpful replies. (And, for hutchphd and Godot_, throwing a bit of humor in.) I agree with jim mcnamara that my post was a bit disorganized, and am grateful for the responses that nonetheless took it on. As jim mcnamara said, I will need quite a bit of luck to make even the best arguments make a dent, but I can try: with the explanations here I am better equipped to diplomatically suggest to my friend some possible ("natural") ways his friend came up with his misinterpretation (which morphed into misinformation) in the spirit of "we all make mistakes, and the medical terminology is confusing, after all" instead of being blunt about it. Thanks again!