Cancer patients who have the COVID vaccine tend to live longer, Luke O’Neill has revealed. 

As well as saving the lives of millions of people who might otherwise have died from coronavirus, the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine is now credited with boosting cancer survival rates by boosting the body’s defences. 

On The Pat Kenny Show, Professor O’Neill said this discovery was “all the talk” at the most recent conference he attended. 

 “What they’re showing is if you have cancer and you get immunotherapy, to boost your immune system,” he explained. 

“And you’ve also got the vaccine, they’re doubling the survival time in lung [cancer] and melanoma. 

“It’s a remarkable study - it’s retrospective; they looked at people who had the vaccine and those who didn’t - they’re called checkpoint inhibitors. 

“They’ve noticed this extension of life. 

“With lung cancer, people were living 18 months longer if they’d had the COVID-19 vaccine, which is very significant.” 

A teenage girl receives a dose of Covid-19 vaccine. Picture by: Sipa USA / Alamy Stock Photo

The study, published in Nature, found that those in the vaccinated group had a survival rate of 55% over a three year period. 

While those who were unvaccinated had a survival rate of 30.8%. 

Checkpoint inhibitors

The key to the discovery lies in what scientists called ‘checkpoint inhibitors’. 

These are drugs used in immunotherapy that tackle ‘checkpoint proteins’ that stop the immune system from fighting back against the cancer cells.

Essentially, the vaccine seems to help the immune system 'wake up' to the danger the body finds itself in.

“The immune system has a thing called a checkpoint and the tumour activates the checkpoint and stops the immune system getting in - like a barrier going down,” Professor O’Neill continued. 

“If you stop the barrier, the immune system gets in, is the overall idea. 

“And these are working in about 20 or 30% of people; we’d love it to be higher than that. 

“Lo and behold, if you get the vaccine with the checkpoint inhibitor, you’re doubling the survival time.” 

People who are older than 60, live in a care facility, have a weak immune system or certain other health conditions are entitled to a free COVID-19 vaccine every autumn or winter. 

Main image: A split of Luke O'Neill and a man getting a COVID vaccine. Picture by: Newstalk and Mark Hertzberg/ZUMA Press Wire.