Wear Your F%$#ing Mask

You know all those reports of an unprecedented surge in lung cancer among young non-smokers? (See here and here where I called noted this)

Well, we now have an explanation, and it's what I, as well as professional health experts who actually know what the f%$# that they are talking about, suggested that this was tied to the Covid pandemic.

A study is not saying that dormant cancer in lung cells can be activated by COVID and flu.

Gee, you think:

Hidden in the lungs of some breast cancer survivors are tumour cells that can remain dormant for decades — until they one day trigger a relapse. Now, experiments in mice show that these rogue cells can be roused from their slumber by common respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19 or the flu.

The findings, published in Nature on 30 July1, seem to extend to humans too: data from thousands of people show that infection with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is linked with a nearly twofold increase in cancer-related death, possibly helping to explain why cancer death rates increased early during the COVID-19 pandemic.

………

DeGregori and his colleagues wondered whether acute inflammation caused by a respiratory infection could also reactivate dormant cancer cells. To test this, the researchers genetically engineered mice to develop breast tumours similar to those in humans and to seed dormant tumour cells into other tissues including the lungs. Then, they infected the animals with either SARS-CoV-2 or influenza.

Within days of infection, dormant cancer cells in the lungs of the mice kicked into high gear, proliferated and formed metastatic lesions. But it wasn’t the pathogens directly that caused this to happen, the researchers learnt: it was a key immune molecule called interleukin-6 (IL-6), which helps to rev up the body’s response to foreign threats. They confirmed this by engineering mice to lack IL-6. In these animals, the dormant cancer cells did not multiply nearly as quickly.

Obviously, this applies to a very specific lung cancer case, but it does appear that this mechanism might be at least part of the explanation for the Covid cancer surge.