• Question: is it true that you inject cancer into someone to fight cancer?

    Asked by cawthornerosa to Daniel, Andrew, Hayley, Natalia, Peta on 14 Nov 2011. This question was also asked by emilymurrell.
    • Photo: Peta Foster

      Peta Foster answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      I have not heard of doing that. I have heard that they are developing a virus that will seek out cancerous cells and kill them which sounds amazing to me 🙂

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14730608

      They are also working to identify the certain cancers which are triggered by virus’s and then produce vaccinations for those viruses so we do not get them which would also be wonderful and those types of cancer could make up anything between 10-20% of the cancers we know about.

      Thanks for the question 🙂
      Peta

    • Photo: Daniel Scully

      Daniel Scully answered on 14 Nov 2011:

      When you inject a small amount of a bug into your system, it allows your immune system to learn what those foreign cells are, so they’re ready to defend against them if they come again.

      The problem with cancerous cells is that they are your own cells (they’re just not working properly). If your immune system learnt to kill them it would be learning to kill all of your cells!

      So I doubt that this could be done directly with cancer. But as Peta says, they may be targeting the cause of cancer.

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