Massachusetts-based genetics researcher Kevin McKernan says the peer review process has become subverted by pharmaceutical interests when it comes to research on adverse impacts of COVID-19 vaccination.
“The peer review process right now is utterly broken and controlled by pharmaceutical interests,” Mr. McKernan told the National Citizens Inquiry, a gathering of scientists, doctors and lay witnesses examining the pandemic response, on its first day of hearings in Regina on May 30.
Pointing to his finding that the COVID-19 vaccines include fragments of genetic material, he said, “it’s very difficult to get controversial material like this public.”
Mr. McKernan, the founder and chief scientific officer of Medicinal Genomics, managed research and development for the Human Genome Project at Whitehead Institute/MIT from 1996 to 2000. His published work has been cited 57,000 times and resulted in 29 patents.
In 2023, Mr. McKernan and co-authors published a preprint paper that demonstrated DNA contamination entitled, “Sequencing of bivalent Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines reveals nanogram to microgram quantities of expression vector dsDNA per dose."
He told the inquiry that peer review was less important than whether the results were replicable, adding that researchers in Japan, France, and Canada had also found DNA contamination. Canadian virologist Dr. David Speicher had similar findings.
“If you even look through the EMA [European Medical Agency] documents themselves, you can see that they have an 815-fold variance in the amount of DNA contamination they’re finding within the ten vials that Pfizer cherry-picked and gave them data for,” Mr. McKernan said.
“The EMA, the FDA and Health Canada have all admitted that the Pfizer vaccines have an SV40 [Simian Virus 40] sequence in them … And they’ve also confessed that they were not properly informed about it. But they nevertheless seem to still be running cover for the manufacturers.”
Mr. McKernan said researchers had found that spike proteins and SV40 sequence bind to the p53 cancer suppressor gene in humans. He called this contamination a “major red flag” as a small amount of genetic material can replicate very quickly.
“When you take a large piece of DNA, and chop it up into pieces, what you’re creating is genomic buckshot, you’re creating stuff that can more readily integrate into this longer.”
Mr. McKernan pointed to a 2023 study in Scientific Reports that showed 7 percent of mammalian cells could be transfected through “high spontaneous integration rates,” suggesting the possibility of genetic changes in humans.
The expert also said Pfizer used E. coli bacteria at the manufacturing stage, in contrast to the process undergone in earlier submissions to regulators.
“In the case of Pfizer, they approved vaccines on one method of manufacturing and then they changed them when they scaled up. So they did a massive bait and switch,” Mr. McKernan said. “In fact, they attempted to retrial it on 252 patients…The EMA who was attempting to hold their feet to the fire eventually surrendered and never demanded they put that data public.”
Mr. McKernan said his research found vaccine spike DNA was “integrated” into chromosome 12 in some instances.
“It happens to be in a gene that’s related to cancer, which was a bit shocking,” he said.
On January 3, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo called for a halt to the administration of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines due to concerns with nucleic acid contaminants. Mr. McKernan said although Ladapo has been “proven right” by “hard evidence,” he did not expect regulatory changes.
“There is a massive regulatory fraud going on here. And we don’t know the consequences of putting this much DNA into the shots. And this could be having an impact on cancer and on the long-term fidelity of the human genome,” he said.
“There’s no amount of data that will change what they’ve done. They’re complicit in the crime and until there’s a massive reorganization at these agencies, they’re going to continue to whistle past the graveyards.”
Health Canada says that COVID-19 vaccines it has approved are safe, and help reduce risk of severe illness, death, and post COVID-19 condition (long COVID).
“Health Canada conducts an in-depth independent review of the required evidence provided by the manufacturer to ensure that our high standards for safety, efficacy and quality are met,” a Health Canada spokesperson previously told The Epoch Times.
Health Canada has previously said that “any claims that the presence of the SV40 promoter enhancer sequence is linked to an increased risk of cancer are unfounded.”
Findings From Embalmers
Retired Major Tom Haviland, a former member of the U.S. Air Force and a retired defence contractor, testified at the inquiry as a lay witness. After watching the movie “Died Suddenly” in November of 2022, he surveyed embalmers to see whether any had found unusual blood clots.“If you go look at old pathology books, you can’t find them. You'll just see traditional grape jelly clots and chicken fat clots which are yellowish, smaller, and tear very easily, much different than these white fibrous clots,” Mr. Haviland testified. “They are large, tough and rubbery, kind of feel like a rubber band and look like calamari.”
Mr. Haviland carried out one survey at the end of 2022 that began in the U.S. and extended to Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. A second survey at the end of 2023 wrapped up in January of 2024.
“I never mentioned the words COVID or COVID vaccine. I only asked the embalmers, ‘What did you see? When did you see it? And… what percentage of your corpses contained these strange clots?’” Mr. Haviland explained.
Haviland sent surveys to 1,700 embalmers, including 300 from Canada. His first Canadian survey had 38 respondents. Of these, 23 reported seeing the white fibrous clots. Eight had seen them in 2020, 16 in 2021, 22 in 2022, and 17 in 2023. On average, they were seen in 30 percent of corpses.
In the second survey, 49 Canadian embalmers responded, and 21 said they saw the white clots on an average of 20 percent of the corpses.
The “microclotting” of blood vessels with what looked like “coffee grounds” was also reported. Embalmers said it occurred rarely in past years in chemotherapy, but had become more common. In the latest survey, 23 embalmers reported still seeing it.
Mr. Haviland also asked provincial directors of funeral associations to pass his survey to members. He read the panel an email received on June 23, 2023, from a member of the Manitoba Funeral Services Association.
“‘Yes, I would say that I am seeing lots less of them.’ He’s talking about the white fibrous clots. ‘But I’m still seeing them and it would stand to reason that now that fewer people are getting boosters we are seeing fewer of the clots,” Mr. Haviland read.
Mr. Haviland said an open comment box in the survey left some embalmers drawing associations with the vaccines, and others insisting there was no correlation. He found the result was telling, given he had not mentioned the vaccine or COVID in his survey.
The Public Health Agency of Canada previously told The Epoch Times that it had “not received any reports of any atypical, hardened, tentacle-like blood clots” in the bodies of deceased vaccinated people.
“Of the billions of vaccinations administered and safety monitoring worldwide, no such unusual clots have been reported by pathologists in Canada or internationally,” PHAC spokesperson Anna Maddison said in an email on Oct. 27, 2022. “Pathologists are medical experts who would be the first to notice and report any such unusual events if they were to occur,” she added.
Matthew Horwood contributed to this report.
