I saw similar "vaccine" trials going on while I was being treated at the NIH for lymphoma, back in '04. It was fascinating. They only have them for certain types of cancer (so far) and there are many, many different diseases that fall under the label "cancer." So far it's only for people who have already been diagnosed, so in reality, it's a treatment - like the article says. I don't know anything about how they work. The interesting thing is, a healthy immune system already knows how to recognize and eliminate cancer cells before proliferation takes place. Our bodies are doing that every day - we are constantly exposed to carcinogens, and mutant cells form all the time. But in a healthy person, they are easily eliminated long before becoming detectable cancer. I wonder if a true vaccine against cancer could really be developed, one that would somehow help the immune system with the constant onslaught of chemicals we have to deal with now. My cynical father would have said, "Yeah, they're called carrots. Put down the cheeseburger."
