Thread by @tomaspueyo

Should you be able to experiment on your own cancer?

This expert virologist did. It was the 3rd time her cancer appeared. It didn't bode well. So she injected viruses in her tumor and it shrunk.

But most journals didn't want to publish her results. Why? Because they're dumb 🧵

https://twitter.com/Nature/status/1855079763129299141

Beata Halassy got cancer in 2016, then again in 2018, and again in 2020. That looked awfully bad. She knew if she continued in the traditional route, her cancer might eventually prevail. So she decided to try what she knew about: viruses

Here's the theory:
1. Select a virus that is likely to attack your target cancer cells
2. Because cancer cells neutralize the immune system, they're more likely to be killed by viruses than healthy cells

3. Once killed by the virus, cancer cells expose their innards and become easier to identify by the immune system
4. Immune system cells rush to the area to kill the virus
5. And they stumble upon the cancer cells they can now more easily identify—and kill

Beata injected a measles virus every few days into her tumor.

But for this to work, you don't want the immune system to react too fast (otherwise it kills the virus before it has time to spread in the tumor and kill cancer cells)

So Beata didn't just inject one virus, but two

Her cancer first grew (inflammation from the immune reaction), and then started shrinking! Until it was cut out.

And Beata knows the viruses succeeded in recruiting the immune system because antibodies were present in the area

4 years later, Beata is still cancer-free

This is amazing news! But science journals were not happy. Why?

I read the reviews from peers, and this is the main concern:
1. The experimenter is the patient
2. There was no review board
3. Publishing this might give people dangerous ideas

This is dumb:
1. Normally you want experimenter & patient to be different ppl Otherwise you have a conflict of interest: "Yes, I assure you, this drug cured me!"

But this was a cancer, which is life-threatening and can be objectively measured➡️no conflict of interest

2. Normally you do want institutional review boards (IRBs) for scientific research, but that's because the doctor is willing to take more risks with unproven treatments than the patient. So the IRBs make sure treatments can work and patients are informed and consent

But not in self-experimentation! There's no conflict of interest between patient and doctor: They both really want the treatment to work!

So this 2nd rule doesn't apply either

3. It's dumb to think that publishing this paper would be bad for society
• It's clearly useful to know she tried this and the cancer shrunk
• The type of ppl who would self-inject viruses are not the type of ppl to read scientific papers

• If there are dumb ppl, that's their pbm. Why should the rest of society have less access to science just because some dumb ppl exist?
• It takes a ton of expertise to actually inject yourself a virus!
Let's stop being so paternalistic

I'm glad Beata was able to get a journal to publish her research. In this article, I explain this in much more detail:
unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/should-you-b…

And in this one, I dive into the choices of her treatment: unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/how-to-beat-…

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