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March 29, 2002

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"An Experimental Vaccine With Promise in Our Backyard" Allentown Morning Call (www.mcall.com) (03/28/02) P. A14

A new experimental vaccine for colon cancer called OncoVAX is showing a lot of promise.  The vaccine was developed by researchers in the Netherlands and the United States.  While the vaccine is already being used in the Netherlands, in the United States it first had to meet certain criteria before it could receive approval.  In particular, the developers had to find a way to sterilize the trace amounts of bacteria contained in the original vaccine.  One of the vaccine's original developers, Dr. Herbert Hoover, chief of surgery at Lehigh Valley Hospital research laboratory in Salisbury Township, Pa., and a colleague, Michael Hanna of Frederick, Md., have now succeeded in sterilizing the vaccine, and they are currently conducting a study to see if the sterile vaccine is as effective as the nonsterile version used in the Netherlands.  Initial studies in Holland indicated that there was a major fall in the recurrence of colon cancer and an improvement in survival rates among people who had received the nonsterile vaccine.

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