
Ancient Dog DNA Reveals Close Relationship with Contagious Cancer - ax00x
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-dog-dna-reveals-close-relationship-with-contagious-cancer/
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apo
_...Through the 1950’s and ’60’s Chester Southam, an oncologist at Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, experimentally injected cancer cells into more
than 300 people, often without properly informing them. Some subjects, which
included prison inmates, developed tumors from the injected cells. (Southam
was never prosecuted and was later elected president of the American
Association for Cancer Research.)_

Three things struck me as odd about this passage: (1) that I had never seen
references to this research before; (2) it seems to have been a key experiment
in determining that some forms of cancer are communicable; and (3) the lack of
outcry, especially coming so soon after the Holocaust.

Southam later had this to say about what he had done, quoted in the NYT:

"It is not necessary to present [the subject] with what you feel are
inconsequential data and [it is] unethical to ram down his throat information
which is detrimental to his condition."

[https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/26/archives/many-
scientific-...](https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/26/archives/many-scientific-
experts-condemn-ethics-of-cancer-injection.html)

And later:

 _Thirty years later, Southam remained convinced his research was both sound
and scientifically important. He was unwavering in his belief that none of the
patients injected with the cancer cells would contract the disease.

When I asked, “What if they had?” he calmly replied, “If they did, we’d just
cut it out.”_

[https://nypost.com/2013/12/28/nycs-forgotten-cancer-
scandal/](https://nypost.com/2013/12/28/nycs-forgotten-cancer-scandal/)

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troels
I'm confused:

    
    
        Some subjects, which included prison inmates, developed tumors from the injected cells. 
    

and later

    
    
        When I asked, “What if they had?” he calmly replied, “If they did, we’d just cut it out.”
    

So did they or didn't they?

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ghkbrew
Wild ass guess: Some patients developed localized tumors at the injection
site, which were eradicated by the host immune system. Thus some could have
tumors without really developing a disease we would call cancer

Edit: I've actually seen this exact reaction with subcutaneous injections of
tumor cells in mice.

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troels
Makes sense. Thanks for clarifying the difference.

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js2
NYT coverage discussed yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17481404](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17481404)

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Bjartr
Interesting. I thought that Tasmanian devil face tumors were the only directly
transmissible cancer

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Angostura
I seem to recall there's a certain type of bivalve (clam? oyster?) that
suffers it too.

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fibbery
/s? These are both mentioned in the article...

