We didn’t start testing neoantigen mRNA cancer vaccines until 2017 [1].
Moderna mostly took an initial infectious disease approach because extant mRNA formulations at the time provoked too much of an immune response that neutralized the effectiveness of subsequent dosing. There's a goldilocks amount of immune response you want-- too little and the immune system doesn't learn the antigens you'd like, but too much makes it miss the mark and focus too much on the formulation of the vaccine itself.
For a cancer vaccine that you want to dose multiple times (9 times in this study) to keep up peak immune response this is a problem. For infectious disease, where some early sensitization of the immune system can be enough, it's not so bad.
The acquired immune system basically includes a feature where it can squirrel away some of the white blood cells that fought an infection in the past at the site of the infection. This is a subset of the cells that were activated by the chemicals that were found during the infection.
But the immune system doesn't have a great way to distinguish the chemicals that actually cause illness from ancillary chemicals that may have been present during the infection as well. This is one of the root causes of allergies... you get sick with, say, rhinovirus at the same time that the pollen count is really high and your immune system defeats the rhinovirus but squirrels away both the white blood cells that were activated by the rhinovirus and the ones that were activated by the basically harmless chemicals on the surface of pollen grains. Then the next time allergy season comes around, your nasal passages and lungs fill up with pollen grains and the white blood cells close to the surface that were squirled away due to that old rhinovirus infection activate and trigger your immune system to respond to the pollen.
Maybe the real surprise for some is that not everything was invented in the valley.
Anything that stimulates the immune system runs the risk of increasing its sensitivity too much till it attacks normal cells and at that point, a lot of horrible things can happen ranging from a new mild allergy to neurological disorders like multiple sclerosis to acute organ failure.
Since the point of the therapy is to get immune cells to attack the cancer cells, there's the very real risk of instead targeting the tissue the cancer evolved from.
That's simply not true. Chemotherapy, in particular, is ridiculously bad.
Chemo brain is a thing. Another example, people have to wear cold packs on their hands and feet in order to minimize the neuropathy that some chemotherapies can cause. Other chemotherapies cause your veins to leak with attendant swelling everywhere. Several years after therapy, some of that swelling still persists. Radiation is horrendously bad at damaging intestinal tissue. etc.
Yes, it beats being dead. That's about all you can say about it.
Most recover nearly completely, but they all suffer some permanent effects, like sun sensitivity, hair loss, digestive problems, anemia, weakened immune system, etc.
Long Island is known as a breast cancer hotspot (especially Nassau County), but I have seen many different types.
I moved here, when I was 28. Before coming here, I had never met anyone that had cancer.
Since moving here, I have known at least one person, every year, that has been battling cancer. This year, it has been 3 fairly close acquaintances.
They keep a lid on it, but it’s bad enough, that it’s pretty much an open secret.
Long Island has historically had quite terrible air quality, as well, no?
What Long Island is, is the site of some of the oldest heavy industry, built for the world wars.
Many those planes and tanks you see in the documentaries, were often built right here.
And they set it up quickly, with very little regulation. People have been straight-up dumping toxic sludge for decades. Since Long Island gets almost all its water from local aquifers, there you have it.
Traditionally, this kind of thing happens to disadvantaged communities, without much clout, but Long Island has a lot of billionaires (old-money billionaires). They get cancer, as well.
But they are also absolutely aghast at the prospect of government intervention, and hate regulations. Add a bit of mob spice, and you have a situation, where no one wants to raise a stink.
We do have some damn good cancer hospitals, though. Very few of the people I have seen fight cancer have actually died.
A few times a month, I pass a fancy adult condo development, built upon the land that was formerly Deutsch Relays[0]; an old superfund site.
[0] https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/CurSites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0...
It beats being dead, surely.