A High Class Problem: Funding A Preventive Breast Cancer Vaccine

By Dr. Kathleen Ruddy
The hardest part about funding the world’s first preventive breast cancer vaccine is developing a vaccine worth funding.

The good news is, the hardest part is over.  Professor Vincent Tuohy of the Cleveland Clinic developed such a vaccine over the course of 10 years and published his results in Nature Medicine in 2010.  Tuohy’s vaccine is 100% effective in preventing breast cancer in three animals models and is completely safe.

The next step is to conduct a Phase I study to see if the vaccine is safe for use in women.  If safe, the vaccine can then be tested to see if it is effective.

Preliminary data indicate that Tuohy’s vaccine is particularly effective against triple-negative breast cancer, the most aggressive and lethal form of the disease.  This is especially important for women who carry BRCA mutations, for in the majority of cases,  breast cancers in these women tend to be triple-negative.

But while it’s a joy to report that we finally have a viable preventive breast cancer vaccine to test, I’m afraid we have another high class problem to solve:  getting funding for a Phase I clinical study to see if Tuohy’s vaccine is safe for use in women.  If it’s both safe and effective, we will finally have a way to prevent breast cancer the same way we prevent cervical cancer, polio, and smallpox – with a vaccine.

Don’t get me wrong:  cures for breast cancer are needed, and they’ll be needed for a long time to come, for complete testing of any vaccine can take as long as ten years, start to finish.  So even if we were to begin testing the vaccine, say, tomorrow morning, there will still be another 1.5 million women diagnosed with breast cancer around the world this year, and every year thereafter more women will be added to the roster, as this is the most common female malignancy in every single country in the world.  At the moment, there are nearly 3 million breast cancer survivors living in the United States – with the sword of Damocles (recurrence and death) hanging over their collective heads.  Our first priority must be, and always has been, to take care of the women who already have the disease.  But what about the rest of us?  Who is taking care of us?  What is being done to lower our risk, find the causes of breast cancer, or prevent the disease?

Not very much.  Which is why we need to test this vaccine to see if it is safe.  A Phase I study of the world’s first preventive breast cancer vaccine must be funded now, not when the system finally gets around to it, which is usually in about 100 years.

Funding a Phase I study of Tuohy’s vaccine is a high class problem with one solution:  JUST SAY YES.