Tobacco Plants Turn Over a New Leaf, Help Fight Cancer

For as bad a rap as tobacco gets in the health media, recent studies showing it's positive role helping to FIGHT cancer as opposed to causing it may make this a cash crop for good instead of evil. Scientists have used tobacco plants as sort of incubator to grow enough of the tumor-like proteins to trigger a response from the immune system. The proteins were then taken from their tobacco-leaf petri dishes and injected back into the volunteers. Once the cells are back in the patient's system, the body can "recognize it as a potential danger and send out armies of disease-killing cells to seek and destroy tumors harboring it."This inexpensive process resulted in 11 out of 16 volunteers with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma experiencing an essentially side-effect free immune response, successfully supplementing their ongoing chemotherapy treatments.


more info can be found at the original link:http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cancer-vaccine-tobacco-plants&sc=rss

and if you too were unfamiliar with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (which about 18,000 Americans are diagnosed with annually), this article explains... and illustrates why a vaccine is such good news!http://www.webmd.com/cancer/non-hodgkins-lymphoma/understanding-non-hodgkins-lymphoma-basics

Gratuitous Happy Story

I usually try to do more than just copy and paste a link to a great story, but in this case I'm going to make an exception. For one thing, this video speaks for itself, and for another, despite all appearances, I am lazy!

For background information, visit http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25797678/

To skip right to the video, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U