"Mayo Clinic trial: Massive blast of measles vaccine wipes out cancer"

[blooz]

Don't spread it around…

[freeradical]

ztirffritz wrote:
[quote=freeradical]
I don't know about this. Maybe.

I recently thumbed through a book about rabies, and there was a chapter about the few handful of people who've survived after the virus enters the brain. It's a very short list. One girl was given some sort of highly experimental treatment and she survived. It's been tried on about a 10-15 other people, and a few of them have survived too. But there is still a great deal of controversy over whether this treatment actually cured the patients, or if they were simply lucky and might have beat it anyway. Who knows.

I guess the bottom line is that when this cancer treatment gets a real track record, I'll buy it.

But it is an interesting story.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/312245-rod...sus-death/
Yes, she is the girl.

[The UnDoug]

This would be great for patients who feel they're in a pickle.

[kj4btkljv]

$tevie wrote:
Stacy Erholtz was out of conventional treatment options for blood cancer last June when she underwent an experimental trial at the Mayo Clinic that injected her with enough measles vaccine to inoculate 10 million people.

I didn't read the story, but... now 10 million people won't get the measles vaccination because Stacy took all of them.

Unless there's an endless supply, or it's really simple to manufacture, that doesn't seem socially responsible for 1 person to use all that medicine.

Jeff

[freeradical]

kj4btkljv wrote:
[quote=$tevie]
Stacy Erholtz was out of conventional treatment options for blood cancer last June when she underwent an experimental trial at the Mayo Clinic that injected her with enough measles vaccine to inoculate 10 million people.

I didn't read the story, but... now 10 million people won't get the measles vaccination because Stacy took all of them.

Unless there's an endless supply, or it's really simple to manufacture, that doesn't seem socially responsible for 1 person to use all that medicine.

Jeff
That's an interesting point. It does not look like you can normally get just the measles vaccine. It appears to only come as part of the MMR vaccine.

The low price per dose of this vaccine is $37.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc...cid=cs_000

Maybe they made it special just for her.

In any case, this is a very pricey treatment. Who paid?

[Paul F.]

If it turns out to be a very effective cure, more can be made, and NOT combined with the other vaccines...
I'd be surprised if, in light of this news, someone at the MMR vaccine factory isn't already asking his team "So, how hard would it be to build a couple more vats for Measels vaccine? Say, a couple billion doses next year, expandable to a trillion or so in 5 years, if this cancer thing works out?".

[ztirffritz]

'We're not sure how to wipe out the chimeral T-cells after they've destroyed the cancer. Though I do have this vial of smallpox ...' wrote:

Here is a story about my co-worker's daughter-in-law:
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/10/...kemia.html

[Paul F.]

Funny that comment should mention Smallpox...
This SORT of thing is why I am against destroying the last samples of Smallpox. We just don't know yet what we MIGHT learn from it in the future.
Who would have thought that MEASLES would be an avenue to cure CANCER, after all.

[kj4btkljv]

Paul F. wrote:
This SORT of thing is why I am against destroying the last samples of Smallpox. We just don't know yet what we MIGHT learn from it in the future.

Just like in World War Z! Just don't know if it was smallpox...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z_(film)#Plot

Jeff

[eustacetilley]

"Tyrell: [Tyrell explains to Roy why he can't extend his lifespan] The facts of life... to make an alteration in the evolvement of an organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once it's been established.
Batty: Why not?
Tyrell: Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies, like rats leaving a sinking ship; then the ship... sinks.
Batty: What about EMS-3 recombination?
Tyrell: We've already tried it - ethyl, methane, sulfinate as an alkylating agent and potent mutagen; it created a virus so lethal the subject was dead before it even left the table.
Batty: Then a repressor protein, that would block the operating cells.
Tyrell: Wouldn't obstruct replication; but it does give rise to an error in replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries with it a mutation - and you've got a virus again... but this, all of this is academic. You were made as well as we could make you.
Batty: But not to last."


Eustace