Cervical Cancer To Be Battled With Tobacco-based Vaccine

Written by OJ Fagbire

Monday, 30 July 2007

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Researchers have started a project in the tobacco country with the aim of enhancing the life span of humans by the creation of a vaccine that settles the problem of cancer.

The purpose of the project is to obtain from tobacco plants a drug that could be used to prevent cervical cancer.
There is a kind of similarity between the vaccine and that of Merck & Co.'s Gardasil, approved by the U.S. government last year to prevent strains of a sexually transmitted disease that causes most cervical cancer. Researchers from the University of Louisville who helped invent Gardasil, Dr. A. Bennett Jenson and Shin-je Ghim, are also working on this new vaccine. The only existing difference between the two vaccines is the cost.

The new vaccine will go for $3 for three doses, while the cost of three doses of Gardasil costs $360. This would make it affordable for developing countries like India, where the disease is the most common malignancy among women.

Jenson and Ghim are also working with an Indian researcher, Dr. Partha Basu, to test an experimental treatment for late-stage cervical cancer.

The head of department of gynecologic oncology at Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute in Kolkata, Dr. Basu said, "Every year, 120,000 new cervical cancer cases are detected in India, 80% of whom are at such an advanced stage. Naturally, there are nearly 80,000 deaths from cervical cancer every year. This may be an underestimate as many deaths go unreported."

According to Palmer, the tobacco-based vaccine has been tested in five dogs, which were totally protected when researchers tried to infect them with oral canine HPV. Palmer pointed out his will to begin the first phase of human clinical trials before the end of 2008, most likely in Owensboro.
Since the making of the new vaccine is still on, Merck is concerned about how to help Indian women have access to Gardasil, with the help of international organizations.

"Merck will make new vaccines, including Gardasil, available at dramatically lower prices to developing world countries," spokeswoman Kristen Eskin said.
Palmer declared his desire for the vaccine. He anticipates the coming around of pharmaceutical company in a developing country to come purchase the vaccine.
"An Indian company may well be a logical one."

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