Scientists test cancer vaccine on humans, trigger 'powerful immune response' by injecting chemo drug combo into tumors

Scientists test cancer vaccine on humans, trigger 'powerful immune response' by injecting chemo drug combo into tumors

Thursday, June 02, 2016





(NaturalNews) A drug company is now set to begin human trials on a new cancer therapy that allegedly uses chemotherapy drugs in a fashion more similar to vaccines, stimulating the immune system to wipe out the cancer on its own and prevent it from returning.

"Even though we are using chemo, this works on the immune system," said Dr. Ian Walters of Intensity Therapeutics. "The tumours die from the inside out. When that happens, the immune cells can 'see' that it's cancer, and form an extremely powerful immune response. It's almost a personalised vaccine."

If the therapy receives approval, it will remain to be seen what its long-term effects are on the immune system or on cancer recurrence.

Too good to be true?

Traditional chemotherapy floods the body with toxic chemicals, poisoning not only cancer cells but also healthy cells. This produces a host of side effects, some of them highly dangerous.

In the therapy being tested, two chemotherapy drugs are injected directly into tumors, along with a third chemical that increases the permeability of the tumor's cell walls. This allows the chemotherapy drugs to directly target the cancer at much lower doses, theoretically producing a much lower toxic effect on other cells and therefore fewer side effects. Once the cells begin to die, the immune system attacks them and finishes them off. In the future, it is then able to recognize that cancer as a foreign invader, and remove it accordingly.

The researchers report that in tests on mice, the therapy completely eliminated 80 percent of cancers, with no recurrence.

Human trials may show highly different results, however. NewLink Genetics recently reported that in human trials, its own experimental cancer vaccine not only failed to improve survival in human pancreatic cancer patients, but actually reduced their lives an average of three months compared with the placebo group.

An early analysis of the data during a scheduled safety check in May would have uncovered the problem, but the company prohibited such an analysis. In the intervening months, the company sold $9.5 million worth of stock based on its supposed new cancer treatment.

Stock prices fell substantially following the announcement of the drug's failure.

Implications not yet understood

As with any drug treatment – particularly one targeting an intricate bodily system like the immune system – it may take decades to truly understand the implications of cancer vaccines. After all, some vaccine critics have charged that rising rates of cancer and autoimmune diseases stem, in part, from reckless experiments performed upon people's immune systems by wide-reaching public vaccination programs.

According to prominent physician Robert Rowen, vaccination in children hampers the development of the thymus gland, causing it to produce fewer immune cells. He says that vaccinated children have 70 percent fewer such cells than unvaccinated children, which is equivalent to a permanent loss of 70 percent of immune function.

Vaccines have also been accused of spreading cancer more directly, through the presence in some vaccines of cancer-causing viruses.

"There is a dark, deadly truth about the vaccine industry, the CDC and vaccine scientists everywhere," Mike Adams has written. "The truth is that vaccines are the vector by which cancer and other diseases are spread through the human population. The rise of many diseases -- such as cancer -- correlates very strongly with the rise of mandatory vaccinations around the world."

Researcher Stephen Johnston of Arizona State University – who is studying ways to make vaccines that actually prevent cancer – questions whether any such vaccine will really ever make it to market.

"The [cancer treatment] industry is responsible for over $200 billion directly spent on cancer in the U.S. each year," he wrote in an unpublished article.

"Any time you have a group that's making a lot of money and their living depends on it ... that community is based on people getting cancer." Johnston said. "Imagine what would happen if someone tomorrow announced that here is evidence that you can take this vaccine, and you won't get cancer."