Kristen Dahlgren on Accelerating Vaccines to End Breast Cancer

“I like to call October ‘Breast Cancer VACCINE Awareness Month,’ because we’re all aware of breast cancer. We get it. One in eight women in this country will be diagnosed with it. Enough already. We need to raise awareness about these breast cancer vaccines that are in development and are in clinical trials, and then we can get them sooner.”

—Kristen Dahlgren, Founder and CEO CANCER VACCINE COALITION

This episode of The Women’s Eye podcast with host Stacey Gualandi is a comprehensive and positive update with former NBC News correspondent Kristen Dahlgren on her ongoing mission to bring scientists, researchers and doctors together to fast-track a breast cancer vaccine.

Kristen Dahlgren, founder and CEO Cancer Vaccine Coalition, raising awareness of vaccines/Photo: Courtesy Cancer Vaccine Coalition — Kristen on the road raising awareness for her
Cancer Vaccine Coalition.

Dahlgren left NBC News only nine months ago to form the nonprofit Cancer Vaccine Coalition. She is excited to announce it has already made incredible and tangible progress.

“We’re expecting to fund our first expansion of a trial that’s already in existence and showing promising results for people with HER2 positive breast cancer. We hope that it can give us some data that can be used in other subtypes as well moving vaccines forward,” says Dahlgren.

“There is another trial for metastatic, triple negative breast cancer. It’s mostly funded by the Kuni Foundation out of Seattle, but we’re kicking in a little to bring in a second site. We introduced Roswell Park Cancer Center to the University of Washington. And now because of that introduction, they are going to be working on a trial with two sites which is really exciting…”

Dahlgren had her ultimate dream job as the medical correspondent for NBC, but she has no regrets leaving her 30-year news career behind. Developing a cancer vaccine, she says, is her life’s work now.

“There’s this idea that we’re all survivors and we’re all doing great and we’re like beating breast cancer,” says Dahlgren. “Unfortunately, 30 percent of people who get breast cancer will metastasize.”

Dahlgren shared her own personal breast cancer story with television viewers after she was diagnosed in 2019. She says doing so gave her a sense of power over a senseless disease. Now, Cancer Vaccine Coalition is asking other survivors to share their personal cancer stories on social media through its “Give Us A Shot” campaign.

“It’s not just the shot in the arm that we all want, it is a shot at life. Give me a shot at being here for my now eight-year old; give me a shot at watching her graduate, and watching her walk down the aisle. Give me a shot at being here for anniversaries with my husband and being here for my elderly parents,” says Dahlgren.

You can post a video of your story to Instagram saying, “I want a shot at…” and then tag @cancervaccinecoalition and #giveusashot.

“[A vaccine] really is a cure for cancer, or at least a way to make it so it’s not a deadly disease. It will give us all this shot at a long life, and we all … deserve better than what the current treatments are which is toxic chemotherapy and an amputation.”

Kristen Dahlgren, founder Cancer Vaccine Coalition with her daughter/Photo Courtesy Kristen Dahlgren — Kristen and her daughter, now 8.

More highlights from our podcast:

How to get involved with the Cancer Vaccine Coalition’s new campaign
What it’s like to build a coalition
How we can do better to save lives affected by cancer
The power of sharing stories

For Dahlgren, she’ll keep fighting for something she believes is going to change the world, and in turn, save lives.

“It’s time for this next phase in the future of cancer treatment! The doctors who are doing this research say that they’re more hopeful than they ever have been; that they have the keys to unlock this science; to unlock our immune systems and to fight this disease in a way that we’ve never been able to do before,” says Dahlgren.