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Why Colin Powell's cancer likely reduced his protection from the Covid-19 vaccine - CNN

Why Colin Powell's cancer likely reduced his protection from the Covid-19 vaccine - CNN

Why Colin Powell's cancer likely reduced his protection from the Covid-19 vaccine - CNN
Oct 18, 2021 1 min, 47 secs

Powell was fully vaccinated, but a source close to the matter confirmed to CNN he had multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer that would have affected his immune response to the vaccine, and made it difficult to fight the virus.

That is the imperative for vaccination in this country."

What is multiple myeloma?

Multiple myeloma is a cancer that forms in white blood cells called plasma cells.

When plasma cells are healthy, they help the body fight off infections and toxins by making immune system proteins called antibodies.

William Cance, chief medical and scientific officer for the American Cancer Society.

Multiple myeloma patients can live for many years with treatment, but it's not considered curable.

"There are many treatments for multiple myeloma that oftentimes will work early on, but ultimately, the tumor cells develop a resistance, and you'll go to another therapy, and another therapy," Pardoll said.

So oftentimes, with the therapies available, individuals can live for many years, sometimes even over 10 years."

Why wouldn't vaccines work as well for people with multiple myeloma?

Even if vaccinated, people with multiple myeloma -- or many other health conditions -- may not be able to mount the kind of immune response a healthy person would.

"Vaccines like the Covid vaccine give our immune systems a little tiny taste or a tiny example of the Covid virus so that they produce these antibodies that put a lot of extra soldiers on guard who also specifically can attack that virus," Cance said.

Even with the vaccine, the data that we have shows that people with multiple myeloma, 20% to 30% of them do not have a good immune response to the vaccines," said Ribas.

David Cohn, the chief medical officer at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

It's essential that people around those with multiple myeloma -- or other immunocompromising conditions -- get vaccinated.

"It's not their fault that they can't generate a good immune response, so the key thing is to have everybody else around them fully vaccinated," Ribas said, noting that current guidelines do not recommend boosters for the caretakers of people who have a low response to the vaccine.

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