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By Greg Marat
The documentary ‘Killing Cancer’ was released by VICE News last February.
‘Killing Cancer’ is a ground-breaking documentary about how researchers in North America finally found a cure to cancer.
Vice co-founder and journalist Shane Smith said he wondered why more people didn’t know about this cure.
The reason is because it is happening right now.
The University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Centre, the MS Anderson Cancer Centre and Ottawa Hospital Research Institute worked together to conduct initial trials, which have been very successful.
‘We are going to be the first to announce it,’’ Mr. Smith Said.
“So we are incredibly humbled and proud of this documentary. We are at the first stages of finding a cure for cancer.”
The cure, Oncolytic-immunotherapy, is defined as the breakthrough method to engage tumour cells to potentially target cancer cells through the immune system.
This approach uses bio-engineered viral vectors with the goal of leaving healthy cells relatively unaffected and therefore, curing the disease of cancer.
This method will allow researchers to genetically modify viruses to destroy cancer cells.
Different viruses have been used to cure different cancers.
Measles would be used to cure bone cancer, HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) to cure leukaemia and smallpox to cure brain cancers.
‘The race now is to find which virus can effectively attack which cancer the most”, Mr. Smith said.
Since the viruses are genetically modified, they do not cause the body any harm.
It means that when you use genetically modified measles to cure bone cancer, the patient won’t be stuck with the measles virus.
‘It’s not a substitution, it is elimination’, Mr. Smith said.
The genetically modified HIV is the most successful so far.
University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Carl June has a 90 per cent success rate with the genetically modified HIV when it comes to attacking blood cancers like leukaemia.
A Cancer Council Victoria spokeswomen said that numerous targeted therapies approved for the treatment of cancer in Australia, including immunotherapies, which are also known as biological therapies.
The spokeswomen also stated that immunotherapies are being used in Australia.
They are available treating for skin, kidney and bladders cancers.
A Walter and Eliza Hall Cancer Research Institute of Victoria spokesman said even though the research sounds promising, Immmunotherapy was “still a relatively new form of a cancer treatment, and there is ongoing research into the field.”
However, Dr. Carl June predicts this type of cure will be widely available in 2016.
Documentary: Killing Cancer, a sneak peek.
See the full VICE documentary at http://killingcancer.vice.com/
Follow Shane Smith from Vice for exciting new stories at https://twitter.com/shanesmith30
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