Cuba Has a Lung Cancer Vaccine—And America Wants It

[Warren Stupidity]

CUBA HAS FOR several years had a promising therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer. The 55-year trade embargo led by the US made sure that Cuba was mostly where it stayed. Until—maybe—now.

The Obama administration has, of course, been trying to normalize relations with the island nation. And last month, during New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s visit to Havana, Roswell Park Cancer Institute finalized an agreement with Cuba’s Center for Molecular Immunology to develop a lung cancer vaccine and begin clinical trials in the US. Essentially, US researchers will bring the Cimavax vaccine stateside and get on track for approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

“The chance to evaluate a vaccine like this is a very exciting prospect,” says Candace Johnson, CEO of Roswell Park. She’s excited, most likely, because research on the vaccine so far shows that it has low toxicity, and it’s relatively cheap to produce and store. The Center for Molecular Immunology will give Roswell Park all of the documentation (how it’s produced, toxicity data, results from past trials) for an FDA drug application; Johnson says she hopes to get approval for testing Cimavax within six to eight months, and to start clinical trials in a year.

How did Cuba end up with a cutting edge immuno-oncology drug? Though the country is justly famous for cigars, rum, and baseball, it also has some of the best and most inventive biotech and medical research in the world. That’s especially notable for a country where the average worker earns $20 a month. Cuba spends a fraction of the money the US does on healthcare per individual; yet the average Cuban has a life expectancy on par with the average American. “They’ve had to do more with less,” says Johnson, “so they’ve had to be even more innovative with how they approach things. For over 40 years, they have had a preeminent immunology community."

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/cimavax-roswell-park-cancer-institute/

Makes you wonder how supposedly backwards communism-crippled cuba could be ahead of the capitalist paradise of USA.

[Romeo.lima333]

1. there's more money treating diseases than curing them that's why the us doesnt have the cure

[still_one]

2. Wrong. CEOs get cancer also. That talking point is simply a Myth and I can

Name plenty of products that have generated remissions or prevent reoccur antes

[Romeo.lima333]

3. there is no cure for cancer no matter who gets it. can you point to a cure for cancer?

a cure not a generated remission

[SidDithers]

7. Cancer is not a single disease. It's hundreds of diseases...

some of which are curable.



Sid

[Romeo.lima333]

9. ok learned something new cool thanks

[valerief]

5. CEOs and their ilk get nearly all the new wealth created. They get stuff

most other people don't, including cures.

[LanternWaste]

6. Very imaginative speculation, but yet still predicated on a logical fallacy.

Post hoc ergo prompter hoc. Very imaginative speculation, but yet still predicated on a logical fallacy.

[Romeo.lima333]

10. thanks yea i've been schooled on that - i dont think there's an 'm' in propter

Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin: after this, therefore because of this) is a logical fallacy (of the questionable cause variety) that states Since event Y followed event X, event .....

[1StrongBlackMan]

4. Well ...

Makes you wonder how supposedly backwards communism-crippled cuba could be ahead of the capitalist paradise of USA.

When the medical goal is treatment; rather than, profit ... you tend to advance stuff.

[MattSh]

8. Maybe Cuba should embargo shipments of this to the USA.

Let the USA get a taste of it's own embargo "medicine."

[Warren Stupidity]

11. They have nothing of value in cuba

backwater ruined economy. Just look at their cars.

Cuba also has a vigorous sustainable agriculture program.

The Cuban government responded to a food crisis in September 1993 by eliminating the majority of state farms and turning them into basic units of cooperative production. Much of the 80 per cent of all farmland that was once held by the state was turned over to the workers and re-established as worker-owned enterprises. Although peasants did not own the land, they were allowed to rent the land indefinitely and free of charge as long as they continued to meet production quotas for their key crops.

Food crops produced in excess of these quotas could be freely sold at farmers markets, thereby providing a price incentive for farmers to effectively use new organic technologies such as biofertilisers, earthworms, compost and the integration of grazing animals. Farmers also revived traditional techniques such as intercropping and manuring in order to increase production yields.1

Public policies also supported urban organic agriculture through the Programa Nacional de Agricultura Urbana (National Programme of Urban Agriculture) in 1994, which was designed to encourage urban farmers to produce diversified, healthy and fresh products. Havanans transformed their vacant lots and backyards into small farms and grazing areas for animals. This resulted in 350,000 new well-paying jobs (out of a total workforce of 5 million), 4 million tons of fruits and vegetables produced annually in Havana (up tenfold in a decade) and a city of 2.2 million agriculturally self-sufficient inhabitants.2

While ensuring national food security under a trade embargo, Cuba’s transition to organic agriculture has also had a positive impact on people’s livelihoods by guaranteeing a steady income for a significant proportion of the population. Moreover, the lack of pesticides for agricultural production is likely to have a positive long-term impact on Cubans’ wellbeing since such chemicals are often associated with various negative health implications such as certain forms of cancer.

http://www.unep.org/greeneconomy/SuccessStories/OrganicAgricultureinCuba/tabid/29890/Default.aspx

[FLPanhandle]

12. Not buying it.

Most of the world doesn't have an embargo with Cuba.

Where's the vaccine test in Europe? Canada?

The US isn't the only place in the world that tests cancer cures.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. That prompted Japan and some European countries to initiate Cimavax clinical trials as well.

From the article.

[Ilsa]

13. Relatively cheap? I bet that changes after

US Pharma gets involved.