Heather A. York
Dr. Richard Shope ground up and filtered rabbit “horns’’ in the 1930’s.
Posted on 08/28/2006 11:49:04 PM PDT by neverdem
Nuns and Jews, cow warts and rabbit horns.
The common link: they were all crucial elements in the search for the world’s newest vaccine.
There are fascinating stories behind every advance in medicine, be it hand washing or brain surgery. But the 70-year history behind the creation of a vaccine against human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer, is more fraught than most with blind alleys, delicate moments, humor and triumph.
Although cervical cancer is being beaten in rich countries thanks to Pap smears, it is still a great killer of the world’s poor. Fulminating tumors that can hemorrhage the womb or burst the intestine make death every bit as agonizing as it was for our great-grandmothers. Even in wealthy countries, aggressive forms appear in rare cases, forcing women barely in their 20’s to get hysterectomies.
For all of those women, the new vaccine approved in June by the Food and Drug Administration could be a lifesaver. But creating it was no easy task. It took decades for scientists to even figure out the cause: the papillomavirus, named for the papilla, or bud, that the tumor creates.
Species as different as birds and whales have their own papillomas. There are more than 100 human strains. Many are harmless. Some cause warts on hands, noses or genitals, and some cause cancer. As a result, blame has been laid on origins like toads, witchcraft and God’s anger at promiscuous women.
Against that background of superstition, the two newest vaccines use technologies that sound almost like science fiction.
Gardasil, made by Merck, uses a yeast to grow the proteins that form the outer shell of the virus; every batch of 360 proteins almost magically assembles itself into a soccer ball exactly mimicking the shell’s shape.
Its rival, Cervarix by GlaxoSmithKline, produces the...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sounds like a gumbo recipe.
Wow they're lauding this as a miracle and it's not even been released yet.
The Healing Power of Adult Stem Cells
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Wow. I knew rabbits were particularly horny, but that's ridiculous...
lol
The painfulully long study period set new records for high numbers of patient participants, in a very difficult study to recruit. In my knowledge, this is the most highly effective vaccine ever developed.
FDA has already approved it.
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