A Cure

For over fifty years this country has been at war. War against one of the most persistent enemies that we have ever encountered. Cancer. Cyctoblasmosis is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer that exists. The tumors can double in size in as little as a few weeks and existing in the brain, the consequences are absolutely devastating. Having buried a number of my family because of the big “C” I am particularly amazed and delighted to hear of this treatment, but was absolutely floored me was to hear how they are treating this disease.

Doctors at Duke University have put together a modified version of the Polio virus …. Yes, polio, the disease that crippled tens of thousands of young men and women in early part of the last century. The disease that put the beloved Franklin D. Roosevelt in a wheelchair and countless thousands in that dreaded of all medical devices, the Iron Lung.

The virus doesn’t actually kill the cancer, but “turns on” the bodies own immune system, causing it to attack the cancer from the inside out and continuing until it actually irradiates the tumors completely. This treatment is only in Phase 1 trials, when treatments are not expected to actually do anything positive, it is more the phase of the doctors trying different things to discover how it works, the proper dose, side effects, etc, etc; but here we have a drug that has had remarkable success. So much success that next year the FDA will decide if this should be pushed out of clinical trials and used for actual treatment across the US. It is dangerous to jump to positive conclusions so quickly and we have seen this sort of thing a few times over the years, but never this successful, never this quickly, and did I mention? The microbiologist that is the brainchild behind this has been trying it on other cancers which, in experiments, seems to be working …. Working incredibly.

Our parents often spoke of the miracle drugs when they talked about penicillin and other similar drugs. Now we have a means of turning on our own immune systems to battle those diseases that were often thought incurable. Imagine … we are on the verge of seeing one of the most dreaded of all diseases more than just battled, but defeated.

At this point in life I find myself wondering how many more miracles I will get to see before I pass on. This is one, perhaps the most important one that I hope I live long enough to see irradiated from the face of the earth. Imagine … being able to cure brain, lung, prostrate, colon and so many other cancers and by using one of the most dreaded of all diseases as the magic bullet.

My God ……. It is breathtaking, absolutely breathtaking. Dare we dream this is the answer? Dare we see this new approach to medicine branch out to a possible cure for so many other autoimmune bases diseases? I’m not a terribly religious man but I can assure you that I am starting to pray for these people and hope the find that one thing that has eluded us for so long …. Please Lord, hear my prayer!