…from the anti vaxxer nuts.
Here’s the background: On my way into work, I heard a segment on Science Friday, called “Giving Viruses a License to Kill . . . Cancer.” Two cancer researchers, Balveen Kaun from Ohio State, and Stephen Russell from the Mayo Clinic, were talking with Ira Flatow about how they had trained a strain of measles virus to recognize and attack ONLY cancer cells (apparently multiple myeloma), and injected six patients with massive doses. One patient’s cancer exhibited complete response and a second patient achieved partial response.
The catch is that the two patients whose cancer responded had no prior availability of measles antibodies in their immune systems, while the immune systems of the four patients who WERE carrying measles antibodies rendered the treatment ineffective. Dr. Russell called this the “antibody block.”
Dr. Russell DID go on to say that they are seeing promising results from animal studies deploying strategies designed to get around the antibody block problem. However, given the dishonesty of your typical anti-vax activist, how long does anybody think it will be until they start using selectively picked aspects of this research to claim that “vaccines cause cancer?” :dubious:
Anyway, I thought I’d give you a heads-up so you could start putting together your rebuttals.
Keep up the good work.
