Vaccines may save one in 10 cancer victims, say scientists

[Guest guest]

I find it hard to believe I am reading this....it's like a horror story

coming true.

Vaccines don't prevent illness - they give a chronic sub-clinical dose of

the *disease* in question. So are these *infections* really being

prevented, or are they simply happening on a much deeper, far more dangerous

level of the human organism?

Move over, enstein....you've had your day. This is a new generation of

Horror.

Oh, by the way - didn't they originally say that the HPV vaccine would

eradicate about 87% of cervical cancer? Changed their minds already?

Sue

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http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS & xml=/news/2006/03/1

3/nvacc13.xml

Vaccines may save one in 10 cancer victims, say scientists

By Celia Hall, Medical Editor

(Filed: 13/03/2006)

Thousands of cancers will be prevented every year in Britain as specific

vaccines are developed, scientists at the leading cancer charity predict

today.

A report from Cancer Research UK says that in time one in 10 cancers could

be prevented by vaccines and they estimate that a quarter of cancers in the

developing world are triggered by a handful of infections.

One in three people will have some form of cancer in their lifetime and more

than 275,000 new cancers are diagnosed in Britain each year. Breast, lung,

bowel and prostate cancers account for more than half of them.

The authors stress that people cannot " catch " cancer like a cold. Rather

some viruses can initiate disease in a proportion of susceptible people.

Although only a small proportion of virus-infected people develop these

cancers, the global number of virus-associated cancer accounts for more than

1.8 million cases of cancer each year - which is around 18 per cent of all

new cancer cases worldwide.

Human papilloma virus (HPV) is present in the majority of cervical cancer

cases and the first vaccine against HPV is expected to reach the market

later this year.

Nearly half a million cases are diagnosed worldwide and almost 3,000 in the

UK each year. Experts believe that HPV vaccine could prevent about 70 per

cent of cervical cancer.

Prof Alan Rickinson, from the Cancer Research UK Institute at the University

of Birmingham and lead author of the report, said: " Studying the association

between infectious agents and human cancers is extremely important because,

in such cases, infection represents one defined link in the chain of events

leading to cancer development.

" Knowing this helps us to trace other links in the chain and to understand

how the whole chain fits together. More importantly, if we can break the

chain by preventing the infection through vaccination, then we can prevent

the cancer developing. "

The report says that almost all kinds of cancer develop through a series of

genetic accidents. When the accidents accumulate, a cell can become

cancerous. For some sorts of cancer, such as cervical cancer, one of these

genetic accidents is linked to infection.

Other cancers linked to viruses include liver cancer, cancer of nasal

passages, some lymphomas and rare forms of leukaemia.

Many cases of stomach cancer are also linked to a common bacterial

infection.

A vaccine has also been developed for the Hepatitis B virus which is linked

to liver cancer. There are 340,000 cases of primary liver cancer worldwide -

half are linked to the Hepatitis B virus. There are 2,784 cases of this

cancer in the UK each year but a much lower percentage of these are linked

to the virus.

Dr Anne Szarewski, clinical consultant at Cancer Research UK, said the work

on cervical cancer was " the most exciting development " in many years.

Cancer Research UK is continuing to fund research into possible links

between other cancers and underlying infection. Prof Toy, medical

director of the charity, said: " As today we successfully vaccinate against

infectious diseases so we shall soon be able to vaccinate against certain

types of cancer. "