• Question: If vaccinations protect you, why don't they just have a cancer vaccination to protect you from that?

    Asked by momochocoluv1 to Helen, Ian on 24 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ian van der Linde

      Ian van der Linde answered on 24 Jun 2011:

      Remember, vaccines are usually dead viruses that encourage our bodies immune system to create anti-bodies to help them destroy the same or similar viruses we might be exposed to. There are vaccinations against some cancers (liver and cervical) because those cancers are known to be caused by viruses. Other cancers may not be caused by viruses, so a vaccination can’t help, unfortunately!

    • Photo: Helen Fletcher

      Helen Fletcher answered on 24 Jun 2011:

      Inventing a vaccine isn’t as easy as that! As Ian says, most preventative vaccines are made out of safe forms of infectious agents, the toxins they produce, or something resembling these things. The problem with cancer is that most types are not to do with infectious agents: they’re caused by a group of cells growing in a certain way. For cancers that are associated with infectious agents, such as cervical cancer and liver cancer, vaccines have recently been developed, which is a big step forward in the cancer world. There is also potential for other types of vaccines called ‘therapeutic vaccines’, which help strengthen the body’s immune response against cancer once it’s already begun. These have been developed against some prostate cancers. It’s a tricky one though- even for some diseases caused by infectious agents (like TB and Malaria), we still don’t have very successful vaccines, though we’re working hard to make them!

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