This disease has touched every household in North America & Vlasak types hate the fact that a vaccine developed to prevent it could have caused researched animal deaths. Knowing children & parents that have lost one of the most important members of their family to breast cancer I am in awe of the callous behavior Vlasak & his ilk have towards those lost to breast cancer and the stress the survivors and their families are under. Vlasak is not so much pro animal rights as he is blind to the tragedy of loosing a member of the human family to a disease that destroys family ties. Unfortunately he has attracted other folks to his beliefs that are just as malicious against these researchers as he is. Those researchers provide hope for a cure first and eventual cures for diseases that destroy the flowers of humanity,our Women folk. http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/why-...me-2208913.htmlWhy yet another cancer 'miracle' really is a cause for hope this
time
While modern medicine may not be able to wipe
out this disease forever, the latest breakthrough has the potential to
greatly extend patients' lives
Picture posed
Saturday June 05 2010
As the lifespan of laboratory mice goes, Dr Vincent
Tuohy's have won the lottery. But only those who were injected with
his groundbreaking breast cancer vaccine. None of these tiny research
creatures, bred to make them prone to the disease, went on to develop
it. All of the others did.For almost a decade, the Irish
immunologist has been convinced that the secret to ridding the human
body of its most insidious killer lies not in treating tumours but
preventing them from ever taking hold in the first place.In the
way that childhood vaccination programmes have proven to be the most
successful intervention in medical history, wiping out diseases like
polio, mumps and measles, he became certain that deadly tumours could be
eliminated in the same way.By focusing on the proteins that
trigger the most dangerous forms of malignancy, a single shot for
prostate cancer, lung cancer and bowel cancer could be developed and
universally distributed to the population, thwarting wayward cells in
their tracks, and saving healthcare systems billions in expensive
chemotherapy treatments with a dubious success rate.Cancer is an
overgrowth of the body's own cells, so creating a vaccination that would
tell the body to stop this process is exceptionally complex because it
can result in the destruction of healthy tissue and cause more harm than
good.A further complication with breast cancer is that tumour
cells are strikingly similar to benign ones and it can be hard to
distinguish between them.But from his lab at the Cleveland
Clinic, Ohio,
Dr Tuohy laid the scientific groundwork for this first-of-its-kind
vaccine by targeting a protein called alpha-lactalbumin, which is found
in most breast cancer cells. His team created a vaccine
containing an antigen against the protein, causing the immune system to
attack it. In their research, the vaccine even proved successful in
shrinking existing tumours. However, although this vital protein is not
found on normal breast cells, it is present in women who are lactating.
As such, the vaccine would only be suitable for women who are not going
to breast feed in the future. This week, many in the normally
cautious world of science hailed the vaccine as "monumental", claiming
it had the potential to eradicate breast cancer for good.Breast
cancer, which is the most common form of the disease after skin cancer,
accounts for almost a third of all cancers in women in Ireland
and is responsible for at least 640 deaths every year.Up to now,
only two cancer-prevention vaccines have been approved for use, one
against cervical cancer and the other against liver cancer. However,
these vaccines target viruses -- namely the human papillomavirus (HPV)
and Hepatitis B (HBV). This is the first time that a vaccine has been
developed that will target cancer formation itself."Tumours are
like drunks in a bar," says Dr Tuohy, "turning up and saying and doing
things they shouldn't. Once they take root, they are very hard to
eliminate and trying to treat cancer has been terribly disappointing.
Preventing it in the first place would be much easier. "If you
can isolate the proteins that are acting up in the body, you can do
that. We think that breast cancer is a completely preventable disease
in the same way that polio is completely preventable."We have a
wonderful vaccination programme for children that protects us from
polio, measles and 17 different diseases -- but it stops at age 13.
There's nothing fancy about what we've done. We're vaccinating against
something that isn't there -- unless you already have a tumour -- so it
shouldn't harm you and it should kill the tumours."The next step
for Dr Tuohy and his team is to get funding so that the vaccine can go
into human trials, a process which could begin next year. However, it
will be at least a decade before the vaccine itself is approved for use
in the general public. The cancer research community in Ireland
has welcomed the development as impressive."This is a big
milestone in the war against cancer and definitely one of the biggest
breakthroughs we've had," says Professor
William Gallagher of the UCD
School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science."And the study
was published in Nature Medicine, a journal you don't really get into
unless you are going to have a big impact. The beauty of it is that you
could shut off the need for treatment if you can prevent the disease
from coming all together."But cancer cells are just modified
versions of our own cells, so if you try to immunise against your own
cells you have to be very careful," says Prof Williams, whose
research focus is breast and skin cancer."The other problem with
a disease like breast cancer is that it can be germinating for over 20
years and has often already spread before you can find it in
mammography."Cancer is very clever. The ability of tumour cells
to spread kills 90pc of people with the disease. Tumours even send out
signals from their primary location to preferred second sites they have
chosen for re-homing. It's a bit like going off to a holiday home and
preparing it in advance. The tumour releases proteins, sent through the
bloodstream, to the bone marrow, liver or brain, for example, and tells
them to create an environment there where it can grow."The idea
that a cure for cancer might be just around the corner has been tempered
by another important fact: just because the new vaccine works in mice
does not mean it will be effective in humans.The most
experimented-on creature in this history of humanity share over 90pc of
their genes with humans and their main biological body systems work in
the same way as ours -- but a mouse can never produce all the answers.Trial
researchers in labs often give doses to mice that are much higher than a
doctor could safely use on a patient. To make a drug suitable for human
use means managing the side effects, a process that can take years to
tackle. However, that should not take away from the value of mice
to some of the world's most significant medical advances, including the
discovery of penicillin, the role of vitamins and understanding how
genes work. As women's hopes were raised by the prospect of a new
weapon in the battle against their most common form of cancer, it was
also an important week for men's health, following research that shows a
new vaccine for prostate cancer is safe and has few side effects.In
April, the US
Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine, Provenge,
for use in men with advanced prostate cancer who have failed hormone
treatments.Unlike the breast cancer vaccine, it is a therapeutic,
not preventive, treatment made from the patient's own white blood
cells. These cells are removed from the patient and treated with the
drug; they are then placed back into the system. They then trigger an
immune response which in turn kills cancer cells and leaves normal ones
unharmed.In trials, some patients with the disease who had been
given a very limited time saw their lives extended by two to three
years.For those at the coalface of cancer research, the dream of
discovering a magic bullet against the disease has long been abandoned. But
there is a growing sense of optimism that while medicine may not be
able to wipe out this most complex of diseases forever, small,
incremental steps like this will ensure that more and more people lead
long healthy lives, keeping it at bay.Irish
Independent