Here we reproduce / narrate some reports which appeared in various Indian daily and other international dailies.....

Cancer Vaccine May End Chemotherapy

A new era in cancer therapy could be opened later this year with the launch of a vaccine which tackles the disease in a new way and could spell the end of chemotherapy.

 Melacine is the first cancer vaccine which has been developed as a treatment for advanced melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer which claims 2,000 lives a year in the UK. The drug is expected to win approval from the US Food and Drugs Administration within the next six months after trials in patients showed ‘promising’ results.   more......

War on cancer proving to be long slog                                    -Hindustan Times July 31st 2003

Not long ago, the defeat of cancer seemed inevitable. No more chemotherapy, the thinking went. No more horrid side effects. Just brilliantly designed drugs that stop cancer while leaving everything else untouched.
Those elegant drugs are now here. But so is cancer.
The dearth of substantial impact so far suggests the fight against cancer will continue to be a tedious slog, and victories will not be scored in  weeks or months of extra life. The potential of the new approach may take decades to be realized.
The drugs, called targeted therapies, are intended to arrest cancer by disrupting the internal signals that fuel its growth. Unlike chemo, which attacks all dividing cells, these medicines are crafted to go after the genetically controlled irregularities that make cancer unique.
Several agents have made it through testing, but despite their apparent bull's-eye hits, lasting results are rare. Instead, these new drugs turn out to be about as effective — or as powerless — as chemotherapy. Aimed at the major forms of cancer, they work spectacularly for a lucky few and modestly for some.
But for most? Not at all.
At best, experts now expect knocking down cancer will require an elaborate mixture of targeted drugs, assembled to match the distinct biology of each person's cancer.
"It's a much more complicated problem than anyone ever appreciated," says Dr Leonard Saltz, a colon cancer expert at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. "It will, unfortunately, be with us for a long time."
The job is so daunting, especially for advanced cancers propelled by potentially dozens of nefarious genetic mutations, that scientists are even rethinking the goal of cancer research.
"Society as a whole, and most of the medical profession, have a wrong understanding that we'll wake up one morning and find out cancer is cured. It won't happen. The public should give it up," says Dr Craig Henderson of the University of California, San Francisco.
Henderson and others have shifted their sights to something less — converting cancer into a chronic disease, like diabetes. Treatments might slow or even stop its worst effects so people survive for years reasonably free of symptoms.
Dr Andrew von Eschenbach of the National Cancer Institute, argues that a cure is not even necessary if this can be done, something he optimistically hopes to see by 2015. But eliminate cancer? "Not in the foreseeable future," he says.

Controversial Cancer treatment  set for Trials

[London] The Italian government has set up a commission to oversee clinical trial of a controversial, non-toxic cancer treatment following intense public demand for the drug (see Nature    391,217;1998). Last week 20,000 people took to the streets of Rome demanding access to the treatment, devised by Luig di Bella, a doctor from Modena northern Italy.

Three experts, chaired by Gotdon Mc Vie, director-general of the UK Cancer Research Campaign, will evaluate trials of the therapy known as MDB. Di Bella says treatments should concentrate on encouraging healthy cells to multiply rather than on destroying infected cells.  ---  Nature March 19th  1998

Cancer Sahyog

Sir, - We are a voluntary emotional support group called 'Cancer Sahyog'  working under the aegis of  Delhi Branch of the Indian Cancer Society. We have at present a limited pool of volunteer cancer survivors associated with us. We would therefore, appeal to survivors to join our effort to provide emotional support to those living with cancer and to their families. Cancer survivors who wish to assist should be free of their disease for at least a year and should have positive attitude towards their cancer experience.             --Hindustan Times June 8, 1998

[We came to know that  Sahyog was unable to mobilize even 100 such volunteers who are "free of their disease for at least a year"]

The Story of "Twin Magic Breast Cancer" Drugs Of Folkman

In the month of May 1998 New York Times (NYT) carried out a story that a researcher by name of  Folkman has discovered a drug that will not only cure breast cancer but will also act as "benign and effective therapy" instead of "toxic chemotherapy". NYT further reported that Nobel Laureate James Watson had endorsed that "Folkman's twin drugs will cure breast cancer in two years!!!". The Newsweek (18th May 1998) wrote on  the impact of the New York Times article on the American masses - "The NYT article became the media equivalent of virulent flu. It infected television  broadcasts, newspapers, magazines and radio with the idea that the researchers could actually cure the disease that Americans fear more than any other". The Folkaman fever continued for 10 days and then came the bombshell from Watson, who said 'Who is this Folkman? I do not know him and I have been quoted falsely'. After this incident some reputed American Oncologists came forward and said "Folkman's drugs can cure at best lab-grown cancer on mice". The days of Folkman-Flu which had gripped America, was  of no purpose? Yes it indeed did wonders for  the Multi-national who had funded the Folkman research. "Their stock price roller-coastarred from $12 to $85 and back down to $52. For a few days, the word angiogenesis was more ubiquitous than the name Lewinsky (President Clinton's White House friend)".

Summing up the entire episode an American journalist wrote "Where patients saw hope, investors saw gold".