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What if we could get a vaccine that would prevent us from getting cancer, by causing our immune systems to protect us from it–just like a flu shot does. This may be on the way.

Our immune systems have trouble recognizing cancer cells as dangerous, so it does not act to destroy them. But we may be able to manipulate our body’s defenses so they will attack cancer cells.

On the Life Extension website, Henry A. Davis quotes immunologist Kunle Odunsi as saying, "There is a slew of data indicating that an immune response can lead to better outcomes in cancer. The question is, how can we harness this power of the immune system?"
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Time to get that flu shot! When you get a vaccination during the day, consider taking a sleeping pill before you go to bed that night, because a new study shows that poor sleep can reduce the effectiveness of vaccines. In fact, sleep duration is directly tied to vaccine immune response.
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It’s time to get your flu shot! But it may not be as effective if you’re overweight. A new study provides evidence explaining a phenomenon that was noticed for the first time during the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak: that obesity is associated with an impaired immune response to the influenza vaccination in humans.
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Representative Michele Bachmann, who may be the Republican candidate in 2012, has been quoted as saying that the vaccine to prevent cervical cancer is "dangerous." Meanwhile, her husband runs a religious clinic that tries to turn gays "straight." It turns out that pediatricians in Appalachia are less likely than doctors in other areas to encourage parents to have their children receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, despite studies showing that Appalachian women are more likely to get cervical cancer and to die from it than women living elsewhere. Could this be a religious bias borne out of a fear of encouraging sexual promiscuity in adolescent girls?
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