
Injecting the flu vaccine into a tumor gets the immune system to attack it - apsec112
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/injecting-the-flu-vaccine-into-a-tumor-gets-the-immune-system-to-attack-it/
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dannykwells
For those interested in this approach, I encourage you to read about the OG
cancer immunotherapy, Coley's toxins:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coley%27s_toxins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coley%27s_toxins)

Approaches like this have been tried for a long time. Some of the best are
using actual viruses, such as oncolytic viruses - see this recent article:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28886381](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28886381)

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g82918
As a non-native speaker, I see OG and think "original grandfather", and that
apparently isn't super far off, what does this mean? Sorry for the redirect.

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VeninVidiaVicii
Originally OG meant "original gangster", but now it has come to mean something
like an early adaptation.

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fenomas
I've read a number of times over the years that OG was 80s slang for "old guy"
(or "an old G"), and that the 90s Ice T song was a play on the older usage.
Don't know if there are any citations though.

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haffi112
This raises the question of whether infections trigger our bodies to get rid
of bad cells such as cancerous cells as the immune system handles it?

If we are never sick in a clean environment does the cancer rate go up? Has
this been studied?

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Vaslo
I read stories like this that are so promising and then never hear about them
again. And people close to us keep dying from it.

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imglorp
Trying to be observant and not cynical here, but it appears the incentives of
the medical system are not always aligned with curing cancer. In the current
system, pharma won't funnel it unless there's billions in payoff, while
medical oncology, imaging, and radiation are making out like bandits in the
current system. How many ads a week do you encounter for "cancer treatment
centers"?

We're left with government and charity funding for research, which are both
minuscule compared to the above.

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rayiner
This makes no sense. Whoever invents a cure for cancer will have the market
cornered and make a ton of money. Drug companies have tremendous incentives to
do that. This isn’t a theoretical economic point. It’s exactly what’s
happening with Hep C.

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redis_mlc
> Whoever invents a cure for cancer will have the market cornered and make a
> ton of money. Drug companies have tremendous incentives to do that.

Where to start ...

1) Cancer isn't one disease, it's hundreds. If you live to 110, you will die
from cancer.

2) Pharmas don't want a cure. They want a daily dose for 40 years like
Rogaine. That's how they make money.

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xyzzyz
> 2) Pharmas don't want a cure. They want a daily dose for 40 years like
> Rogaine. That's how they make money.

Why did they invent Hep C cure then? Sofosbuvir was invented in 2007, and
approved in the US for 2013. It cures Hepatitis C, which previously required
regular doses of drugs. Why did Pharmasset decide to look for a cure instead
of regular daily doses? Why did Gilead buy Pharmasset for $11B? Please,
explain how it fits into your economic model of healthcare.

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deepsun
Injecting anything bad to cells gets immune system to attack them. The problem
is how to selectively inject it to cells you need, no?

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k__
Really? I assumed vaccines wouldn't destroy healthy tissue.

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wanderr
Tumors aren't healthy tissue. My guess is that an immune system on high alert
in an area is more likely to notice bad stuff that otherwise gets ignored.

One effective way to get your immune system to kill warts is to induce a low
grade infection in the wart. The immune system will "notice" the virus and
kill it. If you just freeze them off they are likely to reappear elsewhere
because the virus is still present.

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JohnJamesRambo
How do you induce an infection in a wart?

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zapdrive
Asking for a friend, right?

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JohnJamesRambo
No I just wonder how.

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hanniabu
The same thing is being done with polio.

[https://www.curetoday.com/articles/poliovirus-extends-
surviv...](https://www.curetoday.com/articles/poliovirus-extends-survival-for-
patients-with-glioblastoma-in-early-phase-trial)

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aszantu
#inmice

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aruggirello
Who knows, maybe in tapeworms too.

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sjg007
Awesome news. This gives a lot oh hope for solid tumors.

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syntaxing
It's important to note they're using an active form of a flu vaccine for this
experiment. I was originally wondering how they can do this with an inactive
vaccine (which all flu vaccine used on humans are(?)). Nevertheless, this
sounds really awesome!

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emptybits
For influenza, humans may receive either inactived vaccines (e.g. common shot)
or live attenuated vaccines (e.g. nasal spray).[1]

I assume whether a live virus is attenuated in research like TFA depends on
the hypothesis they're testing. ?

[1] [https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/how-fluvaccine-
made.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/how-fluvaccine-made.htm)

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thrower123
Wow, finally a reason to get flu shots.

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hinkley
I would have guessed that the adjuvants were responsible, but it turns out
that adjuvants were _negatively_ correlated with reduced tumor growth.

