Slashdot Mirror
First Cancer Vaccine Produced
notestein writes "Scientists have produced a vaccine that is 100% effective against the virus that causes practically all forms of cervical cancer. In the US Pap smear tests have reduced the 13,000 new cases of cervical cancer each year to only 4,100 deaths. Still, worldwide, 258,000 women died from cervical cancer last year. The same article also mentions that a vaccine that is 75% effective in protecting women against herpes has been tested."
How many more of these sort of discoveries will we have made?
I just read that the AD-36 virus and related variants have been shown to be a contributing factor in 30% of the obesity in the world. Now I see this article on Cancer.
Wild. How many of our daily problems are caused by these little rna splicing machines we call viruses?
Makes you think. I just hope that this is well tested enough for my daughter to use it in 10 or 15 years.
Cuchullain
"If sharing a thing in no way diminishes it, it is not rightly owned if it is not shared." -St. Augustine
It's a vaccine for a very specific type of cancer. While this is great, I highly doubt we shall have a vaccine for lung cancer, skin cancer, or the other types that are not necessarily caused by a virus. See, what they're going to do next, is make nano-bots with some great AI built in. They then tell the nanobots exactly what a cancerous cell looks like, how to replicate, how much to replicate, and how to kill the cancerous cell. Now hurry up scientists, I want to live forever today.. I don't have a lot of patience.
This is a VIRUS story, not a CANCER story. It's only incidental that this particular virus causes one type of cancer. If it were a CANCER story, it would mean that further development of the vaccine could someday also prevent other kinds of cancer, but it won't. It might someday prevent other kinds of VIRUS induced diseases, which is of course still a very useful thing, since our expertise with viruses is negligible compared to bacteria.
Well, I for one am glad to hear about this.
Once a year having a cold metal rod poked around inside your innermost regions while you lie flat on your back on an uncomfortable table is not fun. Now it's every 2-3 years instead.
Of course, I can't help but wonder how much money was put into vaccine research by the pharmecutical companies to stop women dying, versus the obscene amount of money and research put into new Viagra analogues.
Rhenium
~Phillip