NOTE TO READERS: When this project lost substantial funding at the end of 2018, I lost the ability to continue publishing criteria-driven news story reviews and PR news release reviews - once the bread-and-butter of the site going back to 2006. The 3,200 archived reviews, while still educational, are getting old and difficult for me to technically maintain on the back end of the website. So I am announcing that I plan to remove these reviews from the site by April 1, 2021. The blog and the toolkit - two of the most popular features on the site - will remain. If you wish to peruse the reviews before they disappear, please do so by the end of March 2021. After that date you may still be able to access them via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine - https://archive.org/web/.
Comments
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Greg Pawelski
June 1, 2010 at 4:51 pmA phenomenon, described a few years ago by researchers from the University of Missouri and Imperial College of London in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, could help explain why billions of dollars and decades of research have yet to produce a working vaccine against most forms of cancer. Cancer may resist vaccines by dressing infected cells in the protein trappings of sperm, tricking bodies into thinking they’re harmless.
When sperm are manufactured, their glycoproteins (compounds ubiquitous in cellular function) are tagged with chains of carbohydrates known as Lewis sequences. Human immune systems are generally friendly towards these sequences; they’re probably what allow sperm to be accepted by female immune systems.
Unfortunately for us, cancer cells produce Lewis sequence-tagged glycoproteins. It is largely ignored by human immune systems. Reproduction is required for the survival of our species. Therefore we are
hard-wired to protect our sperm and eggs as well as our unborn babies from any type of immune response.
Unfortunately, the results suggest that many pathogens and tumor cells also have integrated themselves into this protective system, thus enabling them to resist the human immune response.
If aggressive cancers and pathogens are using the same system of universally recognizable markers to trick the immune system into thinking they’re harmless, then we need to determine exactly how this interaction works.
Scientists are going to have to become more clever if they are ever going to solve the problems of cancer. They need to think in an entirely new way if they are to combat aggressive tumor cells.
Janine Guglielmino
June 2, 2010 at 8:35 amGary, here’s a much better story on this issue from Liz Szabo at USA Today. I think it meets many more of the journalistic criteria: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-06-02-cancervaccine02_ST_N.htm. It’s particularly helpful that Liz says high up in the story that most mice studies never even make it to human clinical trials.
Darbi Rogers
June 7, 2010 at 11:57 amGary,
Just recently started receiving Health News Review and I am so thrilled. I wish I’d known of it’s existence a long time ago. As a former nurse I’ve always tried to keep up with the latest medical news and especially now…it’s so warped at times and prime example is your article on the breast vaccine…my thought was “WHAT?!!! Six Mice?!!!! (In another source 50) Why in the world is the media even giving this any time?”
Anyway, Thank you for all your work, your information and especially I love the critiquing at the end of the articles where you validate the authenticity or whether an article is “up to snuff” so to speak.
You are wonderful for the work you are doing to keep the truth alive and separate fact from fiction! As a baby boomer and advocate for the aging, elderly, or soon to be elderly like myself, I think you are right up there close to the right hand of God!! Thanks for separating the wheat from the chaff!!
Blessings and have a wonderful day!
Darbi Rogers
Jan Henderson
June 7, 2010 at 10:30 pmWhenever I find a story like this, I check it out at Behind the Headlines from the UK’s National Health Service. The articles are written by Bazian, a company that provides evidence-based information to publications and healthcare systems. Their articles always start by citing a British headline, and then they give a scientific opinion that explains what type of study was involved, the sample size, and other significant factors. They don’t usually comment as extensively on different publications as they did with this story. Their focus is on correcting misperceptions that may be created by overly enticing headlines.
“BBC News, The Guardian, The Times and the Daily Mirror reported on this research. BBC News, The Guardian and The Times all report that this study was in mice, however, the Daily Mirror does not. The Times covers the limitations of the study well, and highlights the fact that the study was in mice in its headline: “The breast cancer vaccine is great news – for mice”. The Guardian suggests that the vaccine could be tested in humans “within the next two years”, while the Mirror says tests could begin “as early as next year”. It is not clear how these timescales have been arrived at, or whether they are realistic.”
Here’s the homepage: http://www.nhs.uk/News/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx
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