#237

Key issues include the inability of retrospective studies to prove direct causation, the influence of confounding factors like health-seeking behavior and baseline health status, potential observational biases, insufficient data on prior sexual activity, and limited generalizability of findings from the specific dataset used. The reported protective effect on non-HPV cancers like leukemia also lacks a known biological mechanism, making the finding speculative.

Like I should talk.

#238

Water is wet.‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎

#239
4 Likes
#240

If we are on the cusp of vaccines that prevent cancer mortality, the impact on quality life years could be huge. It may or may not add many years to life expectancy, but it would be huge for quality of life and preventing tragic premature deaths. Beyond that, the impact on healthcare spending could be huge. Less money for acute cancer care would mean way more resources available for longevity.

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#241

Vaccines research has huge potential for all sorts of diseases. If we can induce broadly neutralizing antibodies in adult humans that would eradicate covid and HIV. And various cancer types could also be detected and destroyed.
Still, an aging immune system would end up producing fewer and fewer antibodies so we need to address that too.

3 Likes
#242

People with some cancers live longer after a COVID vaccine

mRNA vaccines seem to boost the effectiveness of an immune therapy for skin and lung cancer ― in an unexpected way.

A vaccine that helps to fight cancer might already exist. People being treated for certain deadly cancers lived longer if they had received an mRNA-based vaccine against COVID-19 than if they hadn’t, finds an analysis of medical records.

Follow-up experiments in mice show that the vaccines have this apparent life-extending effect not because they protect against COVID-19 but because they rev up the body’s immune system1. That response increases the effectiveness of therapies called checkpoint inhibitors, the animal data suggest.

“The COVID-19 mRNA vaccine acts like a siren and activates the immune system throughout the entire body”, including inside the tumour, where it “starts programming a response to kill the cancer”, says Adam Grippin, a radiation oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, an co-author of the report published today in Nature. “We were amazed at the results in our patients.”

The findings, which Grippin and his colleagues hope to validate in a clinical trial, suggest further hidden capabilities of mRNA vaccines, even as the administration of US President Donald Trump has slashed about US$500 million in funding for research investigating the technology.

Read the full story: People with some cancers live longer after a COVID vaccine (Nature)