Good and Evil: A Cancer Vaccine from Tobacco Plants

Tobacco makes a comeback!!!

In the first human trial of its kind, a vaccine grown in genetically engineered tobacco plants has proved to be safe, paving the way to one day use it to help combat a potentially fatal form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that the experimental vaccine triggered the immune systems of 11 of 16 volunteers (with so-called follicular B-cell lymphoma) to attack their tumors without any apparent dangerous side effects.

Some 18,000 Americans, typically between the ages of 60 and 65, are diagnosed annually with this incurable, slow-growing type of cancer. Study coauthor Ronald Levy, an oncologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, says that physicians generally take their cues from the disease, waiting to see how fast it is moving—and treating it with toxic chemotherapy (sometimes with radiation) only if it becomes aggressive.

He says that if future trials are successful, the experimental vaccine, which can be made relatively quickly and cheaply, could become a short-term therapy administered immediately after diagnosis to try to keep tumors in check.

"This may not be a replacement for chemotherapies, but a supplement for them," Levy says. "A technology that is fast, like this one, is more amenable to a watchful waiting approach than a technology that is slow to produce."

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Vaccine for drug addiction could offer hope to users

From bad news to good...

CHICAGO (AFP) - In a search for what could be the ultimate cure for drug addiction, scientists have developed a vaccine which prevents the body from getting high.

The hope is that it can stop people from falling back into a spiral of addiction if they have a relapse.

The most promising results so far have been with cocaine, but researchers hope it could also one day be used to cure addiction to methamphetamine, heroin and even cigarettes.

"The vaccine slowly decreases the amount of cocaine that reaches the brain," said Thomas Kosten, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who has been working on the vaccine since 1995.

"It's a slow process, and patients do not go through any significant withdrawal symptoms."
The vaccine works by getting the body's immune system to recognize the drug as foreign and attack it in the blood stream.

It does so by injecting an altered version of the drug into the body which has been attached to a protein that the body will recognize as a threat.

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Girls to get cervical cancer jabs

The Brits come on-line...I think more time is needed to look for side-effects...

LONDON (Reuters) - All girls aged 12 to 13 in England will be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes most cases of cervical cancer, the government said on Friday.

From next autumn, girls will receive three injections at school over six months in a move that could save up to 400 lives each year, the Department of Health said.

Teenagers up to the age 18 will also be vaccinated during a one-off programme lasting two years. The scheme is also expected to be adopted in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

"As a society, we need to do more to prevent disease and not just treat it," Health Secretary Alan Johnson said in a statement.

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Officials say drug caused Nigeria polio

not good news...

LONDON - A polio outbreak in Nigeria was caused by the vaccine designed to stop it, international health officials say, leaving at least 69 children paralyzed.

It is a frightening paradox in a part of the world that already distrusts western vaccines, making it even tougher to stamp out age-old diseases.

The outbreak was caused by the live polio virus that is used in vaccines given orally — the preferred method in developing countries because it is cheaper and doesn't require medical training to dispense.

"This vaccine is the most effective tool we have against the virus, but it's like fighting fire with fire," said Olen Kew, a virologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC and the World Health Organization announced the cause of the polio outbreak last week, even though they knew about it last year.

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Mercury-Containing Vaccine Vindicated

We all got a lot of work out of this issue...

New Research Clears Thimerosal; Some Vaccine Efforts Say Ban Was Premature

As federal health officials offer more evidence that the mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal is safe, many vaccine experts say in retrospect that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's decision to remove it from childhood vaccines may have done more harm than good by raising public fears.

And still others argue that research and funds still being spent on exploring the risks of thimerosal could be directed to more productive enterprises.

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concludes that early exposure to thimerosal does not cause any neurological problems. Thimerosal, used in vaccines since the 1930s, has been a topic of controversy since the FDA banned it in 1999.

Some claim that the additive causes autism and other brain development disorders in children. But the latest study joins a growing body of literature that shows thimerosal is safe and causes no long-term negative effects on children's health.

Although no concrete evidence at the time showed that thimerosal was harmful, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics pushed for its elimination to quell the fears of parents who might otherwise not get their children vaccinated.

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Pioneering treatment for brain cancer gets Swiss approval

Now we're talking...

LONDON (AFP) - An experimental treatment for brain cancer has won approval for commercial use in Switzerland, its London-listed US maker, Northwest Biotherapeutics, Inc., announced on Monday.

DCVax-Brain will be available to patients in selected hospitals and medical centres in Switzerland before the end of September, the first time a treatment of this kind has been given market authorisation, it said in a statement.

"We are delighted to be the first company to reach the market with a personalized therapeutic vaccine for brain cancers, which carry a very bleak prognosis for patients," said Alton Boynton, president and chief executive of Northwest Biotherapeutics.

DCVax-Brain is designed to treat cancer by priming the patient's immune system to attack cancer cells.

The patient's own master immune cells, known as dendritic cells, are taken from the bloodstream while they are still at an immature stage.

These precursor cells are then matured in a lab dish while being exposed to biomarkers from the patient's own tumour, thus helping them to identify the cancer foe. Once they reach adult stage, the cells are injected back into the patient's body.

DCVax-Brain is currently in the second phase of the typical three-phase process of testing a new drug for safety and efficacy before it is licenced by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other medical watchdogs. It is being tested on 141 patients in the United States with glioblastoma multiforme, an especially aggressive form of cancer.

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