{"id":182274,"date":"2015-11-03T20:39:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T01:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/11\/03\/a-huge-milestone-until-the-zombies-apocalypse-anyway\/"},"modified":"2015-11-03T20:39:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T01:39:00","slug":"a-huge-milestone-until-the-zombies-apocalypse-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/11\/03\/a-huge-milestone-until-the-zombies-apocalypse-anyway\/","title":{"rendered":"A &#8216;Huge Milestone&#8217;: Until the Zombies Apocalypse, Anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/KUi0Wsr.jpg\" rel=\"lytebox\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/KUi0Wsr.jpg\" style=\"cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px;\" width=\"300\" \/><\/a>It appears that the folks in biotech are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2015\/nov\/02\/fda-approval-imlygic-cancer-hunting-viral-treatment\">lauding a treatment of cancer using viruses<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">A new cancer treatment strategy is on the horizon that experts say could be a game-changer and spare patients the extreme side effects of existing options such as chemotherapy.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Chemotherapy and other current cancer treatments are brutal, scorched-earth affairs that work because cancer cells are slightly \u2013 but not much \u2013 more susceptible to the havoc they wreak than the rest of the body. Their side effects are legion, and in many cases horrifying \u2013 from hair loss and internal bleeding to chronic nausea and even death.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Imlygic, which bursts melanoma cells open and triggers immune response, can shrink localised tumours but is not proven to extend life, says FDA<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">But last week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time approved a single treatment that can intelligently target cancer cells while leaving healthy ones alone, and simultaneously stimulate the immune system to fight the cancer itself.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The treatment, which is called T-VEC (for talimogene laherparepvec) but will be sold under the brand name Imlygic, uses a modified virus to hunt cancer cells in what experts said was an important and significant step in the battle against the deadly disease.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hmmmm&#8230;.  A revolutionary virus based cancer treatment..<\/p>\n<p>Recall a zombie flick that started with that.<\/p>\n<p>I really hope that the FDA has done proper due diligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that the folks in biotech are lauding a treatment of cancer using viruses: A new cancer treatment strategy is on the horizon that experts say could be a game-changer and spare patients the extreme side effects of existing options such as chemotherapy.Chemotherapy and other current cancer treatments are brutal, scorched-earth affairs that work &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1013,1046,1074,985],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drugs","category-healthcare","category-medical","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182274"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}