Measles Vaccine Wipes Out Incurable Cancer in Landmark Mayo Clinic Study

Stacy Erholtz, who was one of two participants in a study by the Mayo Clinic, has been cured of multiple myeloma after receiving a dose of the measles vaccine massive enough to inoculate as many as 10 million people. The results have researchers excited about the implications for various other diseases; they are already testing the vaccine’s effectiveness on neck, brain, ovarian, and neck cancers, as well as mesothelioma.

“It’s a huge milestone,” said Steven Russell, a hematologist at the Mayo Clinic. “We have known for some time viruses act like a vaccine. If you inject a virus into a tumor, you can provoke the immune system to destroy that cancer and other cancers. This is different. It puts the virus into the bloodstream, it infects and destroys the cancer, debulks it, and then the immune system can come and mop up the residue,” he explained.

The other patient’s cancer returned after nine months. Erholtz, who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma a decade ago, has been in full remission for more than six months. “I had to have failed all conventional treatment to do that trial,” she said. “My mindset was I didn’t have any other options available, so why wouldn’t I do it? It was the easiest treatment by far with very few side effects. I hope it’s the future of treating cancer infusion.”

The researchers decided to use multiple myeloma patients in the study because their immune systems are compromised, meaning their bodies will not fight off the measles before it can attack the cancer. Both Ehholtz and the other patient had limited exposure to measles, so they had not developed a large amount of antibodies to the virus.

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