Measles vaccine eliminates cancer in ‘landmark’ medical trial

[Natural Citizen]

Measles vaccine eliminates cancer in ‘landmark’ medical trial

A Minnesota patient’s blood cancer has gone into complete remission after she was administered a strong dose of the measles vaccine as part of a clinical trial that confirms a “proof of concept” that some cancers can be eliminated with intravenous drugs.

Stacy Erholtz, a 50-year-old native of Pequot Lakes, was running out of treatment options for her blood cancer last year when she participated in a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic, a nonprofit medical research group that has been conducting tests for 150 years.

Only one of two subjects in the experiment, Erholtz was injected with a measles vaccine strong enough to inoculate 10 million people. The disease, which had spread throughout her entire body, almost immediately became “undetectable” in front of Dr. Stephen Russell, the lead researcher on the project.
“It’s a landmark. We’ve known for a long time that we can give a virus intravenously and destroy metastatic cancer in mice,” Russell told the Star Tribune. “Nobody’s shown that you can do that in people before.”

Details of the research were first published Wednesday in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Continued - Measles vaccine eliminates cancer in ‘landmark’ medical trial




Information Technology, Medicine, Science

 

[Zippyjuan]

was injected with a measles vaccine strong enough to inoculate 10 million people.

Wow! Gives you some ideas of just how little material is actually in a vaccine.

Researchers have long known that viruses are capable of killing cancer in animals. The virus attaches itself to a cancerous tumor then uses it as a host to replicate its own genetic material. The overwhelmed cancer cells eventually buckle under the pressure and release the virus.

Doctors carry out this process either by injecting the virus directly into the tumor, thereby reducing the potential of error, or injecting the virus into the bloodstream and allowing it to find the tumor itself. The latter method was used on Erholtz, as much of her cancerous tumors were located in her bone marrow.

“Without trying to hype it too much, it is a very significant discovery,” Dr. John C. Bell of the Centre for Innovative Cancer Research in Ottawa told the Tribune, adding that the development represents a “benchmark to strive for and improve upon.”

Dr. Russell went on to explain that a single 11-year-old boy named David Edmonston has provided the strain that has been used to safely make all of the measles vaccines in the West. Though most people's immune systems attack the strain, patients with multiple myeloma – such as Erholtz – often have suppressed immune systems, which can allow the virus to spread and do its work.

Doctors were able to subvert Erholtz's immune system by extracting her cells, loading them with measles, and then injecting them back into her system.

“That way it doesn’t get destroyed before it reaches its target,” he said.

Ten-thousand infectious units of the measles virus are contained in a normal vaccine, yet patients in this case were given one million infectious units before the level was again increased to 100 billion infectious units.

Sounds like it would not have worked in somebody with a healthy immune system because it would have attacked the virus. (this patient's cancer was in their blood and bone marrow).

Though most people's immune systems attack the strain, patients with multiple myeloma – such as Erholtz – often have suppressed immune systems, which can allow the virus to spread and do its work.

However, the other patient tested in the study was not as lucky at Erholtz; that patient's immune system prevented doctors from administering another vaccine.

 

[FindLiberty]

Raccoon City's underground mad science experiments are hereby approved in my book!
What could go wrong? http://www.tickld.com/x/so-apparently-this-exists-someone-take-me-to-japan-right-now

It sounds promising - it might lead to precision cures for cancer (without the measles or those annoying Zombies).

 

[donnay]

This is great...but I will wait for long-term results. I am definitely skeptical with this course of action.

 

[Kotin]

This is great...but I will wait for long-term results. I am definitely skeptical with this course of action.

Well it will only work for immuno-compromised people.. Viruses have been used for them for varying diseases

The first case of gene therapy infected a person's white blood cells with a virus who had a gene that the cells were missing which I believe coded for an important enzyme..

the therapy worked as the virus inserted into the genome of the cells and gave them the gene Problem was, the virus also inserted oncogenes( mutated cell cycle stimulator genes) into the cells genome and they got leukemia from the virus.. So using a virus like this can always be a double edged sword but it depends on the virus.

 

[amy31416]

Interesting.

 

[James Madison]

This is the plot from I Am Legend. Like exactly the same thing.