After yesterday?s post on hyped magazine cover language on cancer vaccines, it?s nice to take note of?a very good piece on cancer vaccines by the able Sharon Begley of Newsweek and The Daily Beast.
Begley begins in the usual way, with an anecdote about a patient who tried an experimental cancer vaccine in 2006 and is still alive five years later, a highly unlikely outcome. The vaccine?s creator, Begley writes, ?dares to envision a future in which vaccines ?control or even eliminate cancer.??
Begley, writing in anticipation of the 40th anniversary of President Nixon?s declaration of a war on cancer on Dec. 23rd, paints an unusually optimistic view of the future of cancer treatment. Here?s the nut graf, in which she summarizes what she?s about to tell us:
After four decades of largely unfulfilled hopes?Dec. 23 marks 40 years since President Nixon declared war on?cancer?scientists have hit on a potential cure that few thought possible a few years ago: vaccines. If they succeed, cancer vaccines would revolutionize treatment. They could spell the end of chemotherapy and radiation, which can have horrific side effects, which tumor cells often become resistant to, and which often make so little difference it would be laughable were it not so tragic: last week, for instance, headlines touted two new drugs for metastatic breast cancer even though studies failed to show that they extend survival by a single day. Vaccines could make such ?advances? a thing of the past. And they could make cancer as preventable, with a few jabs, as measles.
She follows that immediately by noting that ?could? is the key word. Vaccines could spell the end of chemotherapy and radiation, and even eliminate cancer. We?veheard such promises before; still, it?s nice to see a story that defies the common media wisdom that the war on cancer was a failure. (The New York Times has mostly pursued the idea that we?ve lost the war on cancer, but now and then contradicts itself by finding new hope.)
Begley continues with a very clear explanation of what cancer vaccines are and what they can do, and she runs through various cancer vaccines in different stages of development, letting us know that many researchers are working on these things, and the results from many different labs are promising.
She notes, as she should, that cancer cures have come and gone, but that the number of believers in cancer vaccines is growing, and so is the money to fund their research. After many years, a researcher tells Begley, ?we?re finally getting it right.?
- Paul Raeburn
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