Health Editor’s Note: Viruses can cause some types of cancer. Currently the NIH has a 70 million $ budget to prevent cancers. Since cancer is often greatly difficult to impossible to eliminate from the human body, prevention will be the most viable key to defeating cancers….Carol
The Woman Who Revealed the Missing Link Between Viruses and Cancer
by Leila McNeill Smithsonian.com
If you’re an adolescent girl getting your annual checkup in the United States, your doctor will almost certainly double-check that you’ve gotten the HPV vaccine, otherwise known as Gardasil. The vaccine, which is 100 percent effective against certain strains of the human papillomavirus, is a no-brainer. Today it’s just one of the standard battery of vaccines recommended for preteen boys and girls across the country. But when it was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2006, it was revolutionary.
Until the 1960s, scientists considered the idea of a cancer-causing virus to be preposterous. At the same time, more than 8,000 women a year were dying of cervical cancer, and researchers couldn’t figure out what was causing it. It was only in 1976 that a virologist named Harald zur Hausen identified the human papillomavirus, one of the first viruses known to lead to human cancer. From 1975 to 2014, deaths from cervical cancer dropped by 50 percent. In the future, widespread vaccination could lower cases of cervical cancer by as much as 90 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Carol graduated from Riverside White Cross School of Nursing in Columbus, Ohio and received her diploma as a registered nurse. She attended Bowling Green State University where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History and Literature. She attended the University of Toledo, College of Nursing, and received a Master’s of Nursing Science Degree as an Educator.
She has traveled extensively, is a photographer, and writes on medical issues. Carol has three children RJ, Katherine, and Stephen – one daughter-in-law; Katie – two granddaughters; Isabella Marianna and Zoe Olivia – and one grandson, Alexander Paul. She also shares her life with her husband Gordon Duff, many cats, and two rescues.
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