BusinessWeek: Teaching The Body To Fix Itself - Cancer vaccines still in trial stages may be able to prolong life with few side effects, but the FDA has yet to be convinced

Excerpt:
"Such therapeutic cancer vaccines have been the dream of oncologists for more than a century, but the theory, though elegant, has yet to prove itself. None of the dozens of vaccines in development has won approval from regulators, and there have been several high-profile failures in the past few years. One of the nation's leading cancer researchers, Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute, insists that "there are no therapeutic vaccines that have been shown to be effective."

It's true. There is no confirmation that vaccines can shrink tumors, a standard measure of a cancer drug's effectiveness. There are mounting signals these treatments can keep patients alive far longer than anyone thought possible without major side effects, but no data proving the point. What's more, researchers are not sure how to interpret the available survival data."

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032060.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech

Alex

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