Croatian virologist Beata Halassy defied conventional treatments to cure her breast cancer.
In 2020, she used an experimental method, oncolytic virotherapy, which she administered herself. After two months of treatment, the results were spectacular. But this experiment, carried out on his own body, raises major ethical questions.
Oncolytic virotherapy involves using viruses to attack tumor cells. Beata Halassy, faced with a recurrence of breast cancer after a mastectomy, chose this unique approach, injecting herself with viruses grown in her own laboratory. The viruses used were from the measles and vesicular stomatitis (VSV), whose antiviral properties are already being studied for cancer treatments. The effect of the treatment was visible quickly. After just two months, the tumor shrank significantly and broke away from surrounding tissue. Analysis of the tumor revealed a strong infiltration of lymphocytes, indicating activation of the immune system. These results surprised the medical community, although no consensus yet exists on the effectiveness of this approach for other patients.
This success, however, does not hide the ethical risks. Some experts, like Jacob Sherkow, are concerned that publishing this experiment could encourage patients to deviate from standard treatments. He considers that self-experimentation in medicine must remain a strictly supervised process. Sharing her experience, however, allowed Beata Halassy to defend her point of view: it is essential not to let these discoveries go to waste.
Virotherapy researchers, like Stephen Russell, point out that virotherapy is already used in clinical trials, but never in such personal cases. For him, the innovation lies in the fact that Beata Halassy chose to treat her illness with viruses that she had developed herself. This has given rise to debates about the need for ethics in medical research and border between the science and personal responsibility.
She admits that this self-experimentation was not without risks, but she believes that the knowledge acquired must be shared. Beata Halassy not only cured her cancer, she redefined her scientific priorities and is now looking to extend her discoveries to other areas of virology.
This story raises questions about the place of ethics in medical research and how alternative, unconventional treatments can sometimes provide solutions where conventional medicine fails. Although this experience is isolated, it nevertheless opens a field for reflection on the possibilities of virotherapy in the treatment of cancer.
Although her self-treatment is a unique case, Beata Halassy’s experience illustrates the constant quest for new solutions to often incurable illnesses. However, we will have to wait for future studies to know if oncolytic virotherapy could one day be a validated method for cancer treatments.
What is oncolytic virotherapy?
Oncolytic virotherapy (OVT) is an approach experimental cancer treatment that uses viruses to attack and destroy cancer cells. These viruses are genetically modified or selected to specifically target tumor cells without affecting healthy tissue. The idea is that the virus infects the cancer cell, destroys it, and then stimulates an immune response that helps kill other cancer cells.
The viruses used in OVT, such as those from measles or vesicular stomatitis, were chosen for their ability to penetrate tumor cells and destroy them. Some of these viruses can also activate the patient’s immune cells, which could improve the fight against cancer in the long term.
Although this approach is still largely in the research phase, clinical trials have shown that OVT could be an alternative or complement to traditional treatments such as chemotherapy.
