Only relentless determination gets dissenting data published in peer-reviewed journals

The long and tortuous publication saga of an article challenging the “safe and effective” narrative, the censorship of science and the manufactured “general consensus”

On February 6, 2026, the long and tortuous publication saga finally ended for the article titled “Exploring the potential link between mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations and cancer: A case report with a review of haematopoietic malignancies with insights into pathogenic mechanisms” [1]. Authored by Dr. Patrizia Gentilini, Dr. Janci C. Lindsay, Dr. Nafuko Konishi, Prof. Masanori Fukushima, and myself, the paper presents an objective Case Report of a 39-year-old woman who developed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL) after her second Comirnaty® dose. Furthermore, it reviews similar haematological malignancy cases post-mRNA vaccination from the literature, plus peer-reviewed evidence on potential mechanisms, including FDA and EMA guidelines. Consequently, as a Case Report and literature review based on pre-existing data, the paper it inherently lacks experimental flaws or ambiguous results. Despite that, from March 27, 2024, it endured 16 consecutive rejections across 15 different journals before final acceptance by Oncotarget on January 19, 2026.

https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28827

Notably, the manuscript reached the reviewers in only three of the submissions; the rest of the times was rejected outright by the editors. This pattern carries significant weight, as it may reflect a deliberate “political” will or agenda, prioritizing ideological alignment or external pressures over unbiased scientific judgment.

Furthermore, while multiple rejections might seem a logical consequence of submitting controversial findings to high-impact journals (even though the pandemic clearly demonstrated that a journal’s impact factor doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of articles published in it), this case demands closer scrutiny. In fact: (i) as mentioned earlier, our paper is an objective case report rooted in factual clinical examinations, paired with a literature review and official FDA/EMA guidelines; and (ii) none of our submissions targeted what could be considered “top-tier” journals in terms of impact factor. Interestingly, some of the most absurd facts came from very low-impact journals like Current Proteomics (impact factor 0.5), in which I was serving as Editorial Board member, and where the peak nonsense unfolded: the paper has been accepted twice by reviewers and the Co-Editor-in-Chief, only to be rejected twice, just few days before its online publication. Since the article had obtained a positive scientific evaluation by both the reviewers and the co-Editor-in-Chief and was accepted for publication twice, the events that followed strongly suggest that the Publisher blocked its release. If so, on what scientific grounds could the Publisher override the reviewers’ and the editor’s decisions? Is the Publisher a subject-matter expert? Is the Publisher free from potential conflicts of interest?

The absurd events surrounding this article’s publication history prompted my immediate resignation from the Editorial Board of Current Proteomics (I refuse any association with journals employing such practices) and compelled us to expose these events publicly through a detailed Commentary titled “Censorship in science: How publishing decisions could have shaped the perceived “general consensus” on COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy”. Published the same day by Oncotarget, it chronicles every submission and rejection date, along with the journals’ responses[2].

https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28829

The aim of the Commentary paper is to alert the global public and scientific community to the hidden practices that artificially forged the so-called “safe and effective” consensus on COVID-19 genetic vaccines. By laying bare the full publication saga, we expose how editorial gatekeeping, rather than pure and unbiased science, may have shaped what many accepted as unanimous expert agreement. This isn’t just our story; it’s a wake-up call about systemic censorship that silences dissenting data, ensuring only one narrative dominates. This is precisely why publishing the Commentary on our paper’s publication history, likely carries even deeper significance than publishing the case report paper itself. Indeed, the grave events documented in the Commentary compel us to confront profound questions: How many other papers remain trapped in this editorial limbo today? How many researchers have abandoned the idea of publishing their crucial data, after years of relentless rejections? Consequently, how much vital information has never reached either the scientific community or the general public? And how might the concept of “scientific consensus” have evolved differently if all data, without bias or censorship, had been given a fair chance to be published?

Before leaving you with these urgent questions, I want to sincerely thank Prof. Wafik S. El-Deiry, MD, PhD , Co-Editor-in-Chief of Oncotarget, along with the journal’s Editorial Office, for their professionalism, impartiality, and unwavering integrity in publishing these two important papers. I also urge all scientists facing similar situations to persist with stubborn tenacity, as only relentless determination breaks these barriers and brings dissenting data to light.

References

[1] P. Gentilini, J.C. Lindsay, N. Konishi, M. Fukushima, P. Polykretis, Exploring the potential link between mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations and cancer: A case report with a review of haematopoietic malignancies with insights into pathogenic mechanisms, Oncotarget 17 (2026) 34–49. https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28827.

[2] P. Polykretis, J.C. Lindsay, P. Gentilini, N. Konishi, M. Fukushima, Censorship in science: How publishing decisions could have shaped the perceived “general consensus” on COVID-19 vaccine safety and efficacy, Oncotarget 17 (2026) 50–53. https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28829.