Medical Breakthrough? Enlisting Viruses as Commandos in a War on Cancer - Mike Hale

Friday night’s HBO  “Vice Special Report: Killing Cancer” is a change of pace in several ways. The topic is less sexy and more universal than the “Vice” norm, and the approach is straightforward and relatively calm. 

With a little more hedging and a more modulated and dressed-up correspondent, it could just as well be on “60 Minutes” or PBS.

The reporter in this case is Shane Smith, the Vice co-founder, chief executive and alpha dog, sporting a black T-shirt and an unregenerate Canadian accent. He begins the 40-minute report by explaining how cancer has touched his own life, then drops in on four hospitals doing revolutionary research into the use of retrofitted viruses — for the common cold, measles, smallpox and H.I.V. — to identify and attack cancerous cells.

Mr. Smith points out that the use of H.I.V. and T-cells to fight leukemia by Dr. Carl June at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was first widely publicized in a series of articles in The New York Times, and the “Vice” report can be seen as a wide-ranging and poignant follow-up. Documenting the case of Emily Whitehead (also known as Emma), the first child to receive the experimental treatment, it juxtaposes film of the bald, sad-eyed 6-year-old girl with the currently healthy Emily, still cancer-free more than two years later. Interviewed by Mr. Smith, she concentrates on the charm bracelet she’s stringing, clearly tired of talking about being sick.

The methods Mr. Smith reports on are only at the clinical-trial stage — Dr. June speculates that his T-cell therapy might be publicly available by 2016 — and presumably there’s little data so far on relapse rates. Mr. Smith slips in qualifiers, citing “seemingly miraculous results,” but he’s clearly a believer, not afraid of using the word “cure.” The doctors themselves are more cautious — one says, “We know we’re on the right path” — but still, there are Dr. June’s limited but impressive results: complete remission in 90 percent of 39 children with leukemia.

Lately, Vice Media has been in the news over a lavish dinner paid for by Mr. Smith as well its metastasizing corporate presence in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The return of its television series, which begins a third season next Friday with more typical topics including the militarization of police forces and the way gang violence in Central America drives immigration to the United States, may be a welcome diversion.

Read more: Enlisting Viruses as Commandos in a War on Cancer - NYTimes.com