No, Joe Biden didn’t get ‘turbo cancer’ from COVID-19 vaccines. There’s no such thing.

Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. The type of cancer he has is considered "aggressive," but is it also "turbo," as some on social media have said? 

"It is sad to see another one who is Covid vaccinated and boosted it to the hilt, get turbo cancer already metastasized," read a May 18 X post featuring a photo of the former president.

McCullough Foundation President Peter McCullough said, "It meets all the definitional criteria for being a turbo cancer," according to the group’s May 19 X post that quoted the former cardiologist, who has promoted unproven COVID-19 treatments. 

"Biden took 6 carcinogenic mRNA shots," it continued.

On May 18, Biden’s staff said his aggressive prostate cancer had metastasized to his bones. But there is no evidence linking any COVID-19 vaccine to cancer, nor is there clinical evidence for something called "turbo cancer" experts said. 

The term "turbo cancer" was popularized by anti-vaccine activists, who’ve repeatedly said — contrary to available evidence — that COVID-19 vaccines cause unusually aggressive, fast-growing cancer.

PolitiFact has previously reported that no scientific evidence shows vaccines cause cancer.

"In a basic sense, in order to cause cancer, something has to damage DNA or cause chronic damage that leads to more mistakes in DNA replication," said Dan Wilson, a molecular biologist and host of a science YouTube channel. The COVID-19 mRNA vaccines do neither of those things, Wilson said: "Neither mRNA nor the spike protein it produces have any capability to mutate DNA."

Wilson also pointed out that cancer rates have not increased in an unexpected way, "which you would definitely expect to see if the mass rollout of a cancer-causing vaccine just happened."

Biden’s May 18 announcement came after doctors found a small nodule on his prostate. His cancer was categorized as having a score of 9 out of 10 on the Gleason scale, which grades prostate cancer severity based on cancer cell abnormality as viewed under a microscope. 

A Gleason score is different from other cancer staging and does not necessarily indicate how long the cancer has been developing. It’s a measure of the cancer’s aggressiveness. A Gleason score of 9 or 10 "is the worst form of prostate cancer you can have," said Dr. Benjamin J. Davies, chief of urology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Shadyside. 

Biden having an aggressive form of cancer does not mean it is "turbo cancer" or caused by COVID-19 vaccines.

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"There is no validity at all to any claims that mRNA shots ‘turbo charge’ prostate cancer in the slightest," Davies said.

Aggressive cancers aren't new.

"There are cancers that progress quickly but these are related to histology/cancer type and have always existed, predating vaccines," Dr. Skyler Johnson, a University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute assistant professor, said. 

The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, in an article about COVID-19 vaccine myths, said: "None of the vaccines interact with or alter your DNA in any way, and therefore cannot cause cancer." 

We’ve also reported that the vaccines’ spike proteins are not toxic and or otherwise harmful.

The claim that Biden’s cancer is "turbo cancer" caused by COVID-19 mRNA vaccines has no scientific basis. We rate that claim False.

PolitiFact Digital Research Analyst Sara Swann contributed to this report.