You have cancer cells, and I have cancer cells. Cancer is simply deformed cells. "Cancer", the un-normal disease, develops when those cancer cells overpower the non-cancer cells and everything starts becomming deformed. In minor cancer a false sense of optimism could indeed encourage you to kill enough cancer to get over it, but other than that, yes.
And I wasn't sure if AntiVirus knew what a placebo was. I kinda suck at knowing what things are common knowledge or not, as I would definately consider myself to know some things beyond common knowledge.
There are times that I question your intelligence, Joe. This is one of those times.
A cancerous cell is not any cell with some arbitrary mutation. As I
already stated, it's a cell with a mutation of any gene responsible for a protein that controls cellular mitosis:
Exactly as iago said: cancer isn't a virus. It's a strain of cells that have mutated in such a way that the mechanism which "aborts" duplication during mitosis if any genetic mutation is "detected"
And as wikipedia will confirm, you're wrong.
The unregulated growth that characterizes cancer is caused by damage to DNA, resulting in mutations to genes that encode for proteins controlling cell division. Many mutation events may be required to transform a normal cell into a malignant cell. These mutations can be caused by chemicals or physical agents called carcinogens, by close exposure to radioactive materials, or by certain viruses that can insert their DNA into the human genome. Mutations occur spontaneously, and may be passed down from one generation to the next as a result of mutations within germ lines.
Simply making a person believe they
can defeat cancer by the mere implantation of the idea that it's possible doesn't mean that cancerous cells will spontaneously begin to perish or cease reproducing. I said "directly" for a reason. Lance Armstrong defeated cancer because he physically strained himself while he was diagnosed (there's further medical explanation for the reason it disappeared, but I don't think anyone here is qualified to attempt to guess what it is), not because he was telling cancer to beat it.
Like I said, I would be surprised if anyone here didn't know what a placebo is.
Incidentally, this isn't an ordinary vaccine, like your hepepatitus shots (or other vaccinations we get). If you read the article, it says that they genetically engineered a strain of AIDS that can fight other AIDS viruses.
I wouldn't really even consider it a vaccine. A vaccine prevents disease while an antidote cures a disease.
Antidotes treat poisoning, not any and every form of illness. They are generally created by injecting an animal with the substance (ie, cobra venom) and extracting antibodies from the animal's blood. If you inject foreign antibodies into an immune system, it will help fight off the poison, but that doesn't mean they've become eternally immune to the toxin. The antibodies don't stay in the blood forever; they'll eventually flush out. Antidotes are immediate treatments for dire cases of poisoning.
A vaccine is a weakend, dead or inactive dose of microorganisms. It is used to stimulate the production of antibodies in a patient, which hopefully leads to immunity against the specific strain of microorganism that the vaccination targets.
You're right that the idea behind this is far from the inner works of a vaccine (which is what I think iago was saying in the first place...), but your reasoning and clarification was utter nonsense. If anything, you confused the two terms. Even then, though, you still need to remember that antidotes specifically treat poisons.
This is neither an antidote nor a vaccine. It's a treatment.
