Now It’s “Gaslight” Preprints

Last Friday, a preprint entitled “Synthetic mRNA Vaccines and Transcriptomic Dysregulation: Evidence from New-Onset Adverse Events and Cancers Post-Vaccination” was posted on the MDPI-owned preprint server, Preprints.org. Its authors are Natalia von Ranke, Wei Zhang, Philipp Anokin, Danyang Shao, Ahmad Bereimipour, Minh Vu, Nicolas Hulscher, Kevin J. McKernan, Peter A. McCullough, and John A. Catanzaro. 

MDPI is a pay-to-play commercial publisher based in Basel, Switzerland. Perhaps importantly, the preprint submission guidelines state, “Authors submitting to MDPI journals have the option to submit to Preprints.org during journal submission.”

The preprint’s conclusions are — like the rest of the work — an over-confident stew of tortured wording and pseudo-scientific jargon, enough to gaslight the non-expert reader:

This study provides transcriptomic evidence of molecular disruptions in two patient populations — those with new-onset nonmalignant adverse events and those with newly diagnosed cancers — months to years following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. Using differential expression analysis and GSEA, we identified hallmark signatures of mitochondrial dysfunction, translational stress, immune dysregulation, endothelial disturbance, and proliferative signaling across both cohorts. Notably, while both groups shared transcriptional perturbations in immune and translational pathways, the cancer group exhibited additional signatures of genomic instability and epigenetic remodeling.

Persistent spike protein expression, prolonged synthetic mRNA activity, and RNAmodifications such as N1-methylpseudouridine appear to contribute to sustained aberrant ribosomal activity, proteostasis stress, and immune activation. Our findings also highlight transcriptional signals indicative of tumor-promoting conditions, including suppressed p53 networks, activated MYC targets, and altered interferon signaling, particularly in the context of epigenetic dysregulation in the cancer cohort. These observations suggest that vaccine-induced transcriptomic reprogramming may differentially affect individuals, genetically or immunologically over a long period of time after vaccination.

Within 24 hours, the preprint had received nearly 2500 PDF downloads and 8400 views — far from normal activity for a preprint seeking helpful community feedback. There were zero comments in the same period.

Science Integrity Consultant Elisabeth Bik weighed in quickly via LinkedIn, noting something about the MDPI brand:

There is so much wrong with the study setup, it makes me wonder if any of the antivaxx folks actually know how to design a study.

Also, why is this preprint in MDPI layout? If MDPI accepts this paper, this is more proof that this publisher might accept any crap sent their way.

She elaborated further hours later via her blog, writing:

This study is so poorly designed that it demonstrates only one thing: people who are sick have different RNA transcription profiles than people who are healthy.

Duh. That’s a basic and well-known fact.

Because of its deeply flawed design, lack of proper controls, and absence of key participant data, this study offers no evidence – absolutely nothing – that mRNA vaccines cause cancer.

It is especially disappointing that a group of authors with MDs and PhDs attached their names to such a weak and misleading piece of work. One of the lead authors, Peter McCullough, has had his board certifications revoked — and studies like this help explain why.

Frankly, this paper wouldn’t even be acceptable at a high school science fair, let alone meet the standards expected of serious biomedical research.

Bik notes that McCullough had his American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) certification revoked because he wouldn’t stop spreading Covid-19 misinformation, so it’s no surprise that he isn’t doing serious science. He long ago chose to promote misinformation for personal profit.

However, Bik is missing the forest for the trees and playing into their hands — that is, these people aren’t serious about science but are pushing a narrative, and part of that narrative is that the scientific establishment is elitist and against them, hiding something, not telling the full story. Bik is generating further awareness of the preprint/narrative while giving them raw meat for their subtext of defiance, populism, and bold truth-telling.

As one expert noted in 2020:

I speculate that [the alt-right and white nationalists] are particularly fond of editorializing preprints because (a) this projects to their audience that they are on the bleeding edge of scientific progress, just like mainstream scientists, reinforcing their status within the broader far-right community and (b) there is virtually no competition with news media or science communicators in delivering a “public-friendly” interpretation of the research, effectively inflating their scope of influence.

Even the fact that the paper is not peer reviewed is a marketing highlight for them — it is self-proclaimed “Breaking News,” and one could anticipate any genuine critical reviews being met with obligatory “Thank you but we disagree” correspondence in the scientific sphere, accompanied by cries of elite establishment censorship and “we told you so” within the Substack and media channels they control.

How did this preprint get so much traffic so fast?