Darla Shine, wife of White House Communications Director Bill Shine, took to Twitter recently to make the claim that diseases such as measles “keep you healthy & fight cancer.” To be clear, SurvivorNet is about cancer information, not politics. Left, right, or center. We did get a lot of questions about whether this claim could be true though.
“The entire Baby Boom population alive today had the #Measles as kids Bring back our #ChildhoodDiseases they keep you healthy & fight cancer,” Shine’s full tweet read.
Read MoreHere we go LOL #measlesoutbreak on #CNN #Fake #Hysteria
The entire Baby Boom population alive today had the #Measles as kids
Bring back our #ChildhoodDiseases they keep you healthy & fight cancer Darla Shine (@DarlaShine) February 13, 2019
Shine’s tweet came in response to a CNN story about the recent measles outbreaks in New York and Washington. The outbreaks were both sparked by travelers who contracted measles in foreign countries and then brought the disease back to areas of the United States where vaccination rates are low. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said New York’s outbreak — which affected around 225 people — was the largest number of imported cases since measles was first declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. But many people who commented on Shine’s post were wondering where she got the idea that a disease like measles, which can be deadly, especially for young children, can be used to treat cancer.
After receiving quite a bit of backlash, Shine claimed she was citing a study done by the Mayo Clinic. Shine was likely referring to an experimental treatment the Mayo Clinic was working on several years ago. Two patients with multiple myeloma were given an engineered measles virus, in hopes that the virus would attack cancer cells, but spare normal tissue. Both patients responded to the treatments — with one woman even experiencing a complete remission.
What’s important to keep in mind here is that both patients were given engineered versions of the measles virus — they didn’t simply contract the virus elsewhere and see a regression of cancer. Dr. Segal said that the claim that measles can fight cancer is due to a “confusion in facts.”
“Use of viruses to stimulate the immune system to fight cancer is an old concept,” Dr. Segal told SurvivorNet, “and advances in genetic engineering and vaccine technology have led to promising approaches that use viruses to stimulate the immune system to fight cancer. For example, viruses are sometimes used in cancer vaccines to enhance anti-tumor immunity. In addition, enclitic viruses, which preferentially infect cancer cells, can directly kill cancer cells and enhance immune responses against cancer. However, none of these advances in anti-cancer therapy should be conflated with the inaccurate claims by the anti-vaccine movement that approved vaccines are unsafe or prevent the immune system from fighting against cancer.”
Measles is not the only virus that doctors have attempted to use to treat cancer. Duke University used a genetically modified version of the polio virus to treat a particularly fast-growing brain tumor called glioblastoma — and saw some success in clinical trials. The therapy involves injecting a genetically modified form of the polio virus vaccine directly into the brain tumor. More research is needed, but these developments are incredibly exciting, since glioblastoma is a particularly deadly disease.
Despite these incredible advances in science, the idea that exposure to a disease like measles will help in the fight against cancer is simply not true.
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