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from the positive-effects-of-the-blockade dept.
The Center for American Progress reports
During the 55-year, United States-led trade embargo, the Cuban government used what little resources it had to spur innovation in preventative medicine. Now, with the newly normalized relationship between the U.S. and the small Caribbean nation, American researchers want to seize an opportunity to expand access to Cuba's medical investments.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) recently visited Havana to broker a deal between between cancer researchers in his state and Cuban officials, who have created a potentially promising therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer that is headed to the United States for clinical trials.
The Cuban Ministry of Health made the vaccine, named CimaVax, available to the public in 2011 after researchers at Cuba's Center for Molecular Immunology tweaked the formula for 25 years. At a dollar per shot, the government has been able to protect Cubans against what has become the fourth-leading cause of death in the country by attacking proteins that cause cancerous tumors to grow.
CimaVax slows the growth of cancerous cells by stimulating the body's immune response and spurring the creation of antibodies that stunt the development of tumors. While the vaccine doesn't totally cure the lung cancer, it extends life expectancy by four to six months and reduces symptoms like coughing and breathlessness, as seen in clinical trials conducted in 2008.
[...]Japan and some European countries have launched trial studies of their own to explore Cimavax's potential.
[...]Since the launch of Rural Medical Service in the 1960s and the subsequent revitalization of health care networks for poor Cubans, the focus on prevention, rather than treatment, has helped the island nation keep its health care costs in check. Annual health care costs average about $300 per person--more than 20 times less than that of American patients.
TechDirt notes
Cuban scientists have come up with their own vaccines for meningitis B and hepatitis B, and monoclonal antibodies for kidney transplants. That suggests the success of the "do more with less" approach isn't just a one-off, but can be applied consistently to deliver results.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @09:54PM
So now giving a treatment after you are diagnosed is considered preventative, in fact they gave cimavax after normal chemo. Also it says simavax was being trialed in 2008, so this isn't new. It's not like people don't know how to put EGF along with an adjuvant together to get a vaccine, I'm sure very similar things have been tried in the US since they love the targeted treatment idea and in fact have been trying anti-EGFR (receptor for EGF) therapies for decades.
Finally this will never cure cancer except in a few lucky cases, why? Cancer cells mutate often and there are tons of them. Targeted treatments like this may slow cancer down but rarely cure it, it will select for the resistant mutants. That plan sucks if you are looking for a cure.
I will reveal the first step to curing cancer: stop using the Poisson limit theorem when modelling cancer. It only makes calculations easier, while forcing you to assume carcinogenic mutations are extremely rare. It is no longer necessary and hard-coding assumptions is bad. Once you see a story about that you will know we are back on track.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 20 2015, @10:02PM
in his original paper on his mutagenicity assay, Dr. Ames wrote that every chlorinated hydrocarbon he'd tested was mutagenic. Chlorinated hydrocarbons are very commonly used as plasticizers, that is, to make otherwise hard, brittle plastic soft and flexible.
My ex used to be a biologist. She told me that plastic test tubes make cell cultures mutate. You have to use glass.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:18PM
Most carcinogens are also cytotoxic, damaged tissue requires cell division to regenerate. If the normal error rate during cell division is as high as claimed (~1% chance of chromosome error per division), the effects of carcinogens on specific gene mutations will be a relatively less important mechanism since its implausible they can raise the rate that high.
For example, in the Ames test the chemicals may simply be killing off enough bacteria early on so that the replication rate of the remaining ones speeds up due to more food. If the same DNA replicated more times leads to more chance of error, then you need to account for that. I'd need to look more into the Ames test to know for sure but it doesn't sound like they try very hard to distinguish between the two mechanisms.
And of course everything depends on the dose.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @11:52PM
Here is Ames ranting about pretty much the same thing: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/ [nih.gov]
More cell division for any reason leads to cancer, and the rate of carcinogenic mutations is not low (like the claimed 10^-7 per division).
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday May 21 2015, @01:00AM
My ex used to have a habit of chewing on the insides of her cheeks. Her dentist spotted that and warned her not to.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]