Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 24/09/2012 18:30:01
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Kim Paull asked the Naked Scientists:
Hi
My mum has been listening to you (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/) on Radio 702 in South Africa and she would like to know if you know about an injection that she had in 1962 and 1965 which got rid of all of her warts that she had on her body.
She now has so many warts from her head to her toes and the dermatologists tell her that there was never such an injection and there is still nothing that they can do for her other than to burn them all off or cut them out. Everyone that was burnt or cut off came back with a few more as well.
Please can you let us know if you know anything about this injection, or if you know if there is a vaccine for this virus.
Kind Regards
Kim Paull
What do you think?
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There's over a hundred different species of the human papillomaviruses that generate warts.
A very few of them have vaccines; for example gardasil is a vaccine against the HPV that generates genital cancers, but most don't have any vaccines.
I don't know what injection she may have had, but it could well be a quack-type 'treatment' that didn't really work, and the disappearance of the warts would have been coincidence.
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It sounds like your mother isn't mounting a good immune response to the warts (papillomavirus).
I've seen notes on immunotherapy for warts. It sounds like it has led to positive results for many individuals, but apparently hasn't entered mainstream medical care yet.
http://www.wholisticderm.com/wartimmunotherapy.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15897380
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20462659
I am also seeing some notes on the use of interferon alfa-2b for the treatment of warts, either in a systemic form, local injections, or topical treatment.
Do you have a local teaching/research medical school? I would encourage reading some of the studies about interferon, as well as studies about mumps, Candida, and Trichophyton antigen injections into the warts. Then, go to the dermatology department at your local medical school and see if they are conducting any studies on wart treatment, or could get you involved with studies through other institutions.
You can also contact some of the authors of the more interesting research papers you find.
It is possible that you could get involved in research studies, even conducted through distant institutions.
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You may also read about Epidermodysplasia verruciformis.
Most notes indicate that it is characterized by diffuse flat warts. It can either have genetic causes, or be related to acquired immunodeficiency (HIV/AIDS).
There appears to be no definitive treatment, but there may still be some experimental treatments as suggested above.
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If a young woman presents with distress over warts, and burning them off does not work, then "normal saline" may at least calm the distress for a while.
Severe distress disrupts the immune system, and alleviating this may allow the body to deal with the warts.
So perhaps it was a placebo? (Normal Saline was used as a Control in one of the studies linked by CliffordK, but I can't find the full text to see how successful it was...)
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I agree with CliffordK, your mother's immune system isn't strong enough to fight off the virus causing the warts to come back. I read on this site (http://wartremovalexperts.com/) that there are natural ways to boost your immune system through eating a healthy diet and drinking herbal teas like green tea.