CANCER : Can a vaccine against cancer be developed ?

As stunningly successful as the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have been, researchers have long hoped to use mRNA vaccines for a very different purpose—to treat cancer. mRNA-based cancer treatment vaccines have been tested in small trials for nearly a decade, with some promising early results.

Read more at: https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2022/mrna-vaccines-to-treat-cancer

Microplastics and your health: How much plastic do you eat? It could be as much as a credit card a week

A recent study has found that people eat five grams of micro and nanoplastics every week.

From the most remote depths of the ocean, to the deepest section of the lung, microplastics appear to have invaded every bit of our lives, including the human gastrointestinal tract. The Medical University of Vienna has recently published a study in the journal Exposure & Health which suggests that on average, five grams of plastic particles enter the human gastrointestinal tract per person, per week.

Previous studies have already found particles in the human blood and organs. While microplastics have also been found to harm unborn babies.

Read more at: How much plastic do you eat? It could be as much as a credit card a week | Euronews

Vaccines - a more effective approach: Pfizer, Moderna mRNA Vaccines Could Vanquish Covid Today, Cancer Tomorrow -by Andreas Kluth

The most promising Covid vaccines use nucleic acids called messenger RNA, or mRNA. One vaccine comes from the German firm BioNTech SE and its U.S. partner Pfizer Inc. The other is from the U.S. company Moderna Inc. (its original spelling was ModeRNA, its ticker is MRNA). Another is on the way from CureVac NV, also based in Germany. Br>
Ordinary vaccines tend to be inactivated or weakened viruses which, when injected into the body, stimulate an immune response that can later protect against the live pathogen. But the process of making such vaccines requires various chemicals and cell cultures. This takes time and provides opportunities for contamination.

mRNA vaccines don’t have these problems. They instruct the body itself to make the offending proteins — in this case, the ones that wrap around the viral RNA of SARS-CoV-2. The immune system then homes in on these antigens, practicing for the day when the same proteins show up with the coronavirus attached.

Therein lies mRNA’s bigger promise: It can tell our cells to make whatever protein we want. That includes the antigens of many other diseases besides Covid-19.

Read more at: Pfizer, Moderna mRNA Vaccines Could Vanquish Covid Today, Cancer Tomorrow - Bloomberg

European Cancer statistics: The Netherlands has the third highest incidences of cancer in Europe after Ireland and Denmark

The Netherlands has relatively more cancer cases than any other country in Europe apart from Ireland and Denmark, with colon, melanoma and breast cancer the most common forms of the illness, the Dutch cancer centre IKNL said on Friday.

Cancer of the oesophagus, bladder and lung cancer are also far more prevalent in the Netherlands than in most other European countries, the IKNL said. The data comes from combined Dutch and European sources.

Women in the Netherlands suffer from cancer more often, particularly breast cancer and lung cancer while incidences of prostate cancer among men is also higher than in other European countries. The high incidence rate of lung cancer is down to more women smokers as a result of the ‘early emancipation wave’ of the 1970s,

IKNL cancer specialist Otto Visser told broadcaster NOS. ‘ ‘You can see this in other countries where the emancipation of women started relatively early,’ Visser said. ‘In Denmark many women took up smoking during the 70s and 80s and that country is in the top three.’

 Read more:
The Netherlands has one of the highest incidences of cancer in Europe - DutchNews.nl

Britain: Immune discovery 'may treat all cancer'

Research is at an early stage but scientists said it had huge potential for destroying cancers.

Read more at:
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51182451

The Netherlands - Cancer; still the main cause for death

Cancer: the  main cause of death in the Netherlands:

Read more at:

https://nltimes.nl//07/02/cancer-still-main-cause-death-netherlands

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What causes cancer? Food, products that increase your cancer risk - by Hilary Brueck

Cancer is the second-most-common cause of death in the United States, after heart disease.

It fundamentally affects the way our cells grow and divide, changing them in perverse ways. 

All cancer is a result of damage or genetic mutations in our DNA. The debilitating class of diseases spreads through a body like an invading army as toxic cells grow relentlessly into unruly tumors. 

Some cases of cancer are out of our control, determined by genetic defects and predispositions passed down from one generation to the next, or spurred by genetic changes we undergo through our lifetime. 

But we also know that breathing in certain substances, eating specific things, and even using some kinds of plastics ups the risk of developing some deadly cancers. 

Click on link below for some known carcinogens — cancer-causers — and a few more things that scientists are zeroing in on as prime suspects.

Read more at: What causes cancer? Food, products that increase your cancer risk - Business Insider

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USA - Chemical Industry: Monsanto's Glyphosate "Roundup weed-killer" goes on trial in US with billions at stake - by Aimee Picchi

After it was introduced in the 1970s, Roundup was promoted as an "herbicide that gets to the root of the problem."

Now, four decades later, manufacturer Monsanto will face a lawsuit that seeks to get to the root of another problem: whether the active ingredient in the weed-killer is to blame for a California man's terminal cancer. If Monsanto fails to persuade the court that its product isn't to blame, the agricultural company's flagship product could take a hefty hit.

Billions in revenue could be at stake for Monsanto and its new corporate parent, German chemical giant Bayer, which closed its $60 billion acquisition earlier this month. While Monsanto doesn't break out sales of glyphosate -- the active ingredient in Roundup -- the product delivered $4.8 billion in revenue in 2015. In its latest fiscal year, Monsanto cited higher global sales of glyphosate for helping lift total revenue by 8 percent.

Monsanto declined to comment on the potential sales impact, citing the trial proceedings. In a statement earlier this month, it told CBS News it denied the allegations.

"We have empathy for anyone suffering from cancer, but the scientific evidence clearly shows that glyphosate was not the cause. We look forward to presenting this evidence to the court," it said.

Note EU-Digest: Unfortunately the EU recently cleared the use of this weed killer for the next five years, after a heated debate over whether it causes cancer or not. 

Regardless of this decision, given the legal battle Monsanto is now facing in the US, the EU Parliament, despite the obvious intense lobby by the chemical industry, should immediately halt the use of  the weed-killer glyphosate in Europe, and take another close look at the dangers this weed killer poses for European consumers. Better late than sorry.

Read more: Monsanto's Roundup weed-killer goes on trial with billions at stake - CBS News

Canada: 1 in 2 Canadians will get cancer: reports Canadian Cancer Society

Almost one in every two Canadians is expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, and one in four Canadians will die from the disease, a new report by the Canadian Cancer Society predicts.

In 2017, an estimated 206,200 Canadians will be diagnosed with some form of cancer and an estimated 80,800 will succumb to their malignancy — making cancer the leading cause of death in Canada, the charitable organization said Tuesday in its annual cancer statistics report.

"Currently, every year we're seeing an increase in the number of cancer cases in Canada," said the society's epidemiologist, Leah Smith. "So between now and 2030, for example, we expect to continue to see a dramatic increase in the number of cancers diagnosed in Canada.

"That is a reflection of the growing and aging population," she said. "About 90 per cent of all the cancers that we expect to be diagnosed in 2017 will be among Canadians 50 years of age and older."
About 45 per cent of those cases will occur in people age 70 and older, said Smith, noting that as more people move into old age, the number of cancer cases will rise.

Despite the projection that cancer will cause the deaths of one in four Canadians, cancer mortality rates have been declining since their peak in 1988. Over the past three decades, deaths due to cancer have fallen by more than 30 per cent among men and by about 17 per cent among women.

"Declines in death rates have been largely driven by decreases in lung cancer incidence and mortality, so tobacco control in general has had a big impact on our death rates," Smith said, especially among men, who historically had higher smoking rates than their female counterparts.

Increased rates of screening for breast cancer and improved treatments have also bolstered survival among women.

Read more: 1 in 2 Canadians will get cancer: Cancer Society - Health - CBC News

EU Parliament - Chemical Industry - Monsanto: Glyphosate -- Crushed it!! and Avaaz made it happen

Europe just took an extraordinary vote, refusing to grant Monsanto a license for its main product and cornerstone of its empire - the cancer-linked weed killer glyphosate.

Monsanto thought renewal of glyphosate was a done deal. But now, after over 2 million of us joined the biggest global petition against glyphosate ever and massive targeted public pressure, the future of the Monsanto model is more in question than ever before.

Together we forced this from a formality for a new 15-year license into a heated political debate that ended up as a vote on an 18-month emergency extension. This week, European nations rejected even that.

Leading EU parliamentarian Pavel Poc just said: “Avaaz is indisputably the driving force of the fight for glyphosate discontinuance." Here’s what we have done together to make what seemed impossible, possible:

When it came down to the final vote, all our work paid off - leaders representing half the EU population refused to authorise glyphosate, even for the trimmed down 18-month proposal we had helped reduce the license to!

All of this effort was funded by over 86,000 Avaazers worldwide who donated generously to make this campaign mega.

Throughout this fight, Avaaz was joined by great allies and partners who played invaluable roles. Our view is only partial, but here’s our top list to express gratitude to:

• The Socialists and Democrats, and Green parties in the EU Parliament were crucial in this fight. Particularly Bart Staes and Pavel Poc who were instrumental.
• French Environment Minister Ségolène Royal, who was a central leader in this fight.
• Pesticide Action Network, a great coalition of national action networks that has long campaigned on glyphosate and provided great advice and insight to Avaaz.
• Greenpeace, always a wonderful force on these issues, which did a lot of lobbying and media work on glyphosate.
• Campact ran a brilliant campaign in Germany, and matched massive open letters, polling and bird-dogging to play a key role in flipping the German government on glyphosate.
• And many others! Like HEAL, WeMove.eu, Global 2000, and a great coalition of Italian NGOs on this.

Note EU-DigestL Once again the above result shows that people, once they can get out of their comfort zone and join together in a common cause, can still make a difference and overcome just about any hurdle that is politically, economically ,industrially, environmentally dangerous to their health or lifestyle. 

EU-Digest supports Avaaz  and recommends AVAAZ  - a global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere
 
Read more: Avaaz - Glyphosate -- Crushed it!!

Health: Study shows: Cancer is not just down to 'bad luck' - by Holly Ellyatt

Cancer is mostly a result of external, environmental risk factors rather than down to "bad luck," according to a new study published in Nature magazine, which challenges prominent research into the causes of cancer.

Research into the causes of the disease have prompted clashes between scientists in recent months, with one study published in the journal Science earlier this year suggesting that two thirds of cancers were caused by chance – just plain old "bad luck," the study said -- rather than environmental factors or inherited predispositions.

The study was controversial as it implied that cancer, put down to the malignant transformation of cells that multiply within the body, was largely unavoidable and that it came down to the number of times a cell divides (giving rise to the "bad luck" conclusion).

The latest study on cancer development in Nature challenged the "bad luck" hypothesis, however, concluding that cancer risk is "heavily influenced by extrinsic factors" with only 10-30 percent of cancers down to intrinsic risk factors such as mutations.

The study was conducted by a team of doctors, including Song Wu, Scott Powers, Wei Zhu and led by Yusuf Hannun, at Stony Brook University in New York.


They found that there was a "substantial contribution of external risk factors to cancer development" including environmental factors like ultraviolet (UV) radiation and carcinogens, such as smoking.

Summarizing their findings, they said the results were important for "strategizing cancer prevention, research and public health."

Both studies come at a time of increased spending on cancer treatments by national health bodies and drug research by pharmaceutical companies.

Total global spending on cancer medications reached the $100 billion threshold in 2014, according to a report by the U.S.-based IMS Institute for healthcare informatics released in May.

Growth in global spending on cancer drugs – measured using ex-manufacturer prices and not reflecting off-invoice discounts, rebates or patient access programs – increased at a compound annual growth rate of 6.5 percent on a constant-dollar basis during the past five years," the institute said in the report.

Spending on oncology - the study and treatment of cancers and tumors - remains concentrated among the U.S. and five largest European countries, which together account for 66 percent of the total market, it added.
Pharmaceutical companies are keen not to miss out on increased spending. U.K. pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced on Thursday that it was to bolster its blood cancer treatment portfolio by buying a 55 percent stake in Acerta Pharma in a deal valued at $4 billion dollars.

Read more: Cancer is not just down to 'bad luck': Study

UN cancer agency sees a cancer risk in Roundup and other pesticides

The UN's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said Friday that three pesticides, including the popular weedkiller Roundup, were "probably" carcinogenic and two others, which have already been outlawed or restricted, were "possibly" so. IARC classified the herbicide glyphosate -- the active ingredient in Roundup -- and the insecticides malathion and diazinon as "probably carcinogenic" on the basis of "limited evidence" of cancer among humans.

The insecticides tetrachlorvinphos and parathion were classified as "possibly carcinogenic" in the light of "convincing evidence" from lab animals, it said.

The classification, made by an expert panel, is not binding, said IARC, an agency based in Lyon, southeastern France, that comes under the aegis of the World Health Organization (WHO). "It remains the responsibility of individual governments and other international organisations to recommend regulations, legislation or public health intervention," it said.

Glyphosate -- introduced in the 1970s under the brand Roundup but now manufactured generically -- is the most-produced weedkiller in the world, the IARC said.

Agricultural use of it has surged since the introduction of crops genetically modified to be resistant to the chemical, enabling farmers to douse a field in one go to kill weeds.

"The general population is exposed (to glyphosate) primarily through residence near sprayed areas, home use and diet, and the level that has been observed is generally low," the IARC statement said.

The evaluation of glyphosate saw "limited evidence" of a type of cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma, as seen in studies in the United States, Sweden and Canada conducted among farm workers since 2001.

In 1985, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classified glyphosate as "possibly carcinogenic for humans" on the basis of experiments on lab mice.

UN cancer agency sees a risk in Roundup and other pesticides - Yahoo News

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

Your cellphone is killing you: What people don’t want you to know about electromagnetic fields - by Martin Blank

You may not realize it, but you are participating in an unauthorized experiment—“the largest biological experiment ever,” in the words of Swedish neuro-oncologist Leif Salford. For the first time, many of us are holding high-powered microwave transmitters—in the form of cell phones—directly against our heads on a daily basis.

Cell phones generate electromagnetic fields (EMF), and emit electromagnetic radiation (EMR). They share this feature with all modern electronics that run on alternating current (AC) power (from the power grid and the outlets in your walls) or that utilize wireless communication. Different devices radiate different levels of EMF, with different characteristics.

Read more: Your cellphone is killing you: What people don’t want you to know about electromagnetic fields - Salon.com

European Health-Care Costs: Cancer costing European Union countries 'billions'

Cancer costs countries in the European Union 126bn euro a year, according to the first EU-wide analysis of the economic impact of the disease. 

The charity Cancer Research UK said it was a "huge burden".

The figures, published in the Lancet Oncology, included the cost of drugs and health care as well as earnings lost through sickness or families providing care.  Lung cancer was the most costly form of the disease.
The team from the University of Oxford and King's College London analysed data from each of the 27 nations in the EU in 2009.

The showed the total cost was 126bn euro and of that 51bn euro was down to healthcare costs including doctors' time and drug costs.

Lost productivity, because of work missed through sickness or dying young, cost 52bn (£44bn) euro while the cost to families of providing care was put at 23bn euro.

Overall, richer countries, such as Germany and Luxembourg, spent more on cancer treatment per person than eastern European countries such as Bulgaria and Lithuania.

Lung cancer accounted for more than a tenth of all cancer costs in Europe. The deadly cancer tends to affect people at an earlier age than other cancers so the lost productivity through early deaths is a major factor.

Read more: BBC News - Cancer costing European Union countries 'billions'

Smoking: Licence to die?

Smoking kills up to half of its users. This is the grim reality that slaps you in the face when you read the tobacco fact sheet of the World Heath Organization (WHO). A staggering amount of scientific evidence accumulated over the past 50 years shows that smoking causes several types of cancer, cardio-vascular and respiratory diseases. Nevertheless, smoking kills over 5 million people every year and the death toll continues to rise, especially in low and middle-income countries.

To tackle this global tobacco epidemic, the WHO established the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005. More than 170 countries have joined this treaty and agreed to put into practice a set of public health policies to protect people from second-hand smoking, to combat tobacco illegal trade and to encourage smokers to quit.

Brazil is one of the pioneer countries in implementing such policies for tobacco control. In 1990, Brazil introduced the first rises in cigarette taxes, which doubled cigarette prices in just ten years. This and other subsequent anti-smoking policies such as smoking bans on public spaces and tobacco marketing restrictions for instance, led to a remarkable drop in smoking rates from 35% in 1989 to nearly half in 2008. But it wasn't known which policies were responsible for this steep decline in the number of smokers.

In a new study published in PLoS Medicine, David Levy from Georgetown University used a computational model to answer this question. Levy found that as much as half of the reduction in smoking rates was due to cigarette price increases alone, while smoking bans and marketing controls each accounted for a 14% drop, and other policies contributed slightly less. The raw numbers are even more impressive: the model estimates that anti-smoking policies saved over 400 thousand lives over the past 20 years in Brazil, and the prediction is that by 2050 almost 7 million more lives will be saved.

Brazil's success story tells us that anti-smoking measures can work even in low to middle-income countries, where smoking is more prevalent. However, Levy's model estimates that an additional 1.3 million deaths could be prevented by 2050 if stricter policies were introduced. So are tougher anti-smoking policies needed to eradicate smoking all together? The answer might be found on the other side of the globe.

Read more: Licence to die?

Medical Research: Compound found in marijuana shown to 'turn off' cancer - by Greta McClain

Researchers at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco found that a marijuana compound known as cannabidiol can stop metastasis in many types of aggressive cancers.

Sean McAllister, one of the researchers at California Pacific, was studying the effects of Cannabidiol (CDB). Cannabidiol is a non-psychoactive chemical compound in the cannabis plant. Pierre Desprez, a molecular biologist researcher, began studying ID-1, the gene that causes cancer to spread, about 20 years ago. The two combined their research and introduced CDB to cancer cells containing ID-1 in a petri dish. They found that CDB stopped the metastasis of the cancer cells.

Sean McAllister, one of the researchers at California Pacific, was studying the effects of Cannabidiol (CDB). Cannabidiol is a non-psychoactive chemical compound in the cannabis plant. Pierre Desprez, a molecular biologist researcher, began studying ID-1, the gene that causes cancer to spread, about 20 years ago. The two combined their research and introduced CDB to cancer cells containing ID-1 in a petri dish. They found that CDB stopped the metastasis of the cancer cells. Metastasis is the spread of disease from one organ or part to another non-adjacent organ or part.

Read more: Compound found in marijuana shown to 'turn off' cancer

Scientists predict European cancer death rates to fall

Nearly 1.3 million Europeans will succumb to some form of cancer in 2011, according to research conducted by Swiss and Italian researchers and published Wednesday in the journal Annals of Oncology. 

The figure represents an overall decrease in cancer rates of 7 percent for men and 6 percent for women over the last four years. Stomach, colon, breast, womb, prostate and male lung cancers should continue declining, the researchers wrote.

The analysis used predictive models based on individual cancer rates from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom as well as cancer rates for the European Union as a whole.

For more: Scientists predict European cancer death rates to fall | Science & Technology | Deutsche Welle | 09.02.2011

Health: Why is Denmark the cancer capital of the world? by Nick Collins

Denmark has been named as the world's cancer capital, with some 326 people in every 100,000 developing the disease each year. One reason why Danish people seem to be particularly susceptible to cancer is that its record of diagnosing the disease is so good, meaning that more cases are picked up by the country's doctors than in most other parts of the world.But there are also lifestyle factors which could be having an influence on the figures reported by the World Cancer Research Fund from the World Health Organization.

A larger than average proportion of Danish women are smokers, while the country also has high levels of alcohol consumption, both of which have been shown to increase the risk of developing cancer.

The figures show that high-income countries tend to have higher rates of cancer than less developed parts of the world, with 13 European countries, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand among the top 20 states for overall cancer rates.

For more: Why is Denmark the cancer capital of the world? - Telegraph

UPI.com: Denmark to use gruesome pictures on cigarette packs

For the complete report from UPI.com click on this link

Denmark to use pictures on cigarette packs

The Danish Health Ministry plans to add gruesome pictures of the effects of smoking to cigarette packs, including images of smoke-blackened lungs and bodies in morgues. Health Minister Jakob Axel Neilsen told the Metro Xpress newspaper he expects the photographic warnings to be added as part of a national health plan based on prevention to be put into effect next fall.

The proposal has the backing of the government and the major opposition party, although the Health Ministry has the authority to put it into effect. The Prevention Commission recommended using pictures, based on a Canadian study that showed they are more effective than written warnings.