Fascinatung idea, a vaccine against nicotine. I expect the influential tobacco lobby (especially in the corrupt US) will be trying to put up obstacles to such a development. Afterall, their profits depend on maximizing the number of addicts, not reducing the number through "cures" and vaccination. And big tobacco still has some clout in the US Congress, I'm afraid. Even in "more enlightened" Canada, our gov't still sponsors foreign trade initiatives helping our own tobacco industry export their noxious products.

As far as possible vaccines against opiates goes (other than pre-made antibodies used to save lives of OD victims), what if a vaccinated person ends up requiring strong opiate pain relievers due to some disease or injury? It would be awful if their pain was less treatable because they'd been vaccinated against opiates.

I'd also have a problem if anyone was forced against their will into vaccination for illegal drugs.

Common Wisdom typically views all addiction to illegal drugs as "bad" by definition, and best eradicated. And I agree that somedrugs do appear to deserve this assessment. Crystal meth, for instance.
I'm not sure opiate habituation deserves such an assessment, in every case.
I believe many opiate addicts are self medicating, perhaps alleviating some kind of biochemical imbalance relating to endorphins (the body's natural opioids).
Natural opium seems preferable , less problematic than the stronger heroin,oxycontin, etc. though.

Someone self medicating with a daily and inexpensive opium tea habit, for instance, may find themselves more functional, less stressed, better adjusted to life in general than before the habituation began. An addiction to opium tea may be more beneficial (to certain people) than an addiction to the much lauded green tea, containing addictive caffeine.

I'm all for such vaccines if they are administered by the consent of an informed recipient.

I would be completely against the gov't requiring vaccinations involuntarily (except in emergencies, like ODs), via the judicial (or other) system. There are human rights issues, and as I say, I don't believe addiction is in every case "bad" (hello Tim Horton's/Starbucks habitues!)

If an individual is vacinated against narcotics, would they still get pain relief from morphine if they needed pain killer. I am curious as to how that would work. Surgury without pain relief is something I would not want to endure but, perhaps they have thought of this and perhaps the pain killer effect would still work. Anybody out there know?

as far as i understand how things work...
they wouldn't get pain relief from morphine because the antibodies would make the drug too big to get into the brain or nervous system.

so that would definately be a problem, but a vaccine for morphine type drugs is still at the very beginning stages right now.

there are other non-narcotic options in the pipeline that could provided the same level of pain relief...

another story in the series talks about one such option Quest for Super Painkiller that Won't Addict.

It will never happen. The US makes too much money off illegal drugs. Some $500 billion of drug money washes in and out of the financial system every year. Also the CIA won't like it - no easy cash for terrorist activity. Nor will the police-justice-prison industrial complex be happy. Illegal drugs create most of the 2 million plus prisoners in the US gulag system.

Good to read you, Bobb999.
I happen to agree with you anarcho, even though its a touch pessimistic?

There are some idealistic and principled problems with treating drug addictions with a drug. The first and best treatment will always be to never start to begin with. But we do have a lot of white coats pushing drugs these days with so many patients blindly trusting them with their health and offer to be healthy if they would just take drugs. When was good old fashioned "humility" ever not enough to spark true change?

And what would change. "Today, I feel like coke, tomarrow, heroin, and the day after, when I have to come down, I'll take the "anti addiction drug" and wait til it wears off so I can get high again.

Tell you what, until there are true reconnections established with what really matters... life, love, truth and all that holds true value because its not built on some fantasy or phisod, but something real... there will be no real healing.

Nice to have a bag of tricks, but in the end, there is no trick to it. You either want to get well, or you don't and when those moments of true clarity come that give you the window of opportunity you were looking for to deal with your problems and you didn't take it... because it was too truthful without the love, the love of yourself and others around you that you can potentially harm by simply half functioning... then there won't be a magic bullet designed out there to keep you from sliding into the spinning vortex going down, down, down, rock bottom and for some it will be the grave, its just how it is.

Anarcho:

Amen! I would venture so far as to suggest the entire country would collapse were illegal drugs no longer needed or wanted.......

Nabi's got fast track from FDA. NicVax is in, trust me. The trick is to do trials of motivated quitters then go into fantastic stage 3 clinical triaLESS claims of efficacy, which might only mean that non smokers don't smoke, and motivated quitters, quit.

And the beauty is that you don't even have to prove that they would have started without your vaccine. So its a win win situation. The biopharmaceuticals win and the pharmacists win.

So basically, as is the case with gardasil for hpv, once you get your approval card, YOU NEVER HAVE TO PROVE ANYTHING AGAIN.

It's a beaut!

April 30, 2008's the vaccine mother lode day. Any gamblers? Addiction vaccines don't actually have to do ANYTHING, especially when you can give them to non-addicts--which would tend to be the way to go. It's a beaut! Better yet, little kids--they might smoke, eh.

Fugedaboudit! It's a done deal!

And watch the stocks rise in the security sector as postal authorities gear up to protect their workers from each other as the antibodied antsy become non-smokers.

We've already got a good vaccine against smoking. It's called lung cancer.

The Brain. Word.

Imagine a vaccine against being liberal, now we are talking. How about a vaccine to prevent conservatism.
I ask, who's in charge of dispensing these vaccines?
I think most of society would be in favour of eliminating smokers. The Germans wanted to exterminate the Jews.
This is a weird idea. Unless there really is a vaccine that would halt liberalism.

I see Clueless is back. Will someone please wipe the drool off his chin. I assume that his inane comment about liberals is somehow aimed at those of us who regularily post here. How often do we have to tell him that most of us here are not liberals, and, in fact, really don't care much for the species?

anarcho; to me life is simple. You are either a liberal or a conservative. If I am a conservative, are you willing to have given me a needle that prevents conservatism?
This point I am trying to make, may be toooooooo deep for you to grasp. The article posted above seemed to be into social engineering.
I am not into that stuff.
At least not the politically correct liberals.
I resent liberals. I don't want them dead however, and I don't want a vaccine to prevent this affliction.

A very interesting piece. On the surface it sounds simply like a new quitting regimen and trials suggest it's very effective. For you purists out there who think it just takes a little will and strength of spirit... tell that to the sobbing scab-ridden wax-skinned mother whose screaming child hasn't eaten in 4 hours and whose been wallowing in its own piss and shit since the night before.

Of course, it does (remarkably I'm in agreement with IAMC) hold the frightening potential to be a tool for social engineering and (grinning and bearing it, quoting IAMC) "I'm not into that stuff" either. Of course, social engineering takes place in every form imaginable all the time, from the cradle to the grave. This is getting overtly "Stepford Wives" kind of creepy though.

If this is to be marketed and administered, then the regulations must be tight to allow its use for consenting adults only. No matter what a parent wants for their 6 year old, this type of thing should not be allowed to be administered to anyone not of the age of majority, regardless of what mom and dad want.

jk

Are you really trying to draw a comparison between the two? This could be your most trollish post yet.

The only way these two could possibly compare is if the tobacco companies are the nazi's and smokers the jews... and even that is a stretch.

And lest you think I'm some do-good "social engineer" this is coming from someone who's struggled with the tobacco addiction for some 20 years.

Vaccinations against addictions assume two very unproven things:

- Addictions are genetic.
- Addictions have nothing to do with choice or environmental factors.

Now, if both were true, there would be cause for a vaccination. Doctors could isolate "addiction" genes, and recommend vaccinations. But guess what.

Addiction genes aren't proven. What is proven is that addictions have EVERYTHING to do with choice and environmental factors (family influences, peers, yes, diet). And since since this is the case, one cannot vaccinate for a behavior or lifestyle orientated disease.

There have been good strides made in the fields of pychology that clearly demonstate biophysical responses to addictions. Is the drug the horse or the cart to the effects of drugs on the human body? The correct answer, is both. And unfortunately, most drugs supress certain glands that normally produce the chemicals contained in the drug itself, so the best ways of beating addictions isn't just will, but has a physical component that must be combined with the pychological needs that need to be addressed.

Most drug addicts are malnutritioned, especially in minerals, any look at a meth addict or crackhead or chronic alchoholic's teeth for that matter will tell you that the alkaline minerals have been severly leeched from bones and tissue. This is due to the fact that hard drugs are very acidic and leech alkaline minerals to buffer the acids being induced by the drug addict. The tissues are constantly being washed by acids which prematurely age the addict tremendously. We've all seen it.

Its not just a head doctor the addict needs to help them solve their problems, the root causes to the reason for such a horrendous choice to do hard drugs to begin with. Its diet and excercise, with detox and malnutrition becoming main factors to address straight off the hop. How can one download the right software needed to get well when the hard drive can't process the information?

Take my word for it. This type of "vaccination" won't prevent anything. It could have a usage in neutralizing drugs already in the system so that the patient can become straight quite quickly and while the side effects of such drugs being neutralized in the system remain to be seen, there is a need for such drug neutralizers on the spot. But vaccinations? Thats a bit much, knowing what I know about the causal effects of drugs and addictions.

Man wasn't created to exist in a vacuum. The co-op is the natural state of man (in rejection of Hobbes notion of Man in a state of nature) Man is a cooperative beast, adhering to the principle that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Capitalism demands that people "be bound closer together", to the point of enforced association. But capitalism rejects the co-op, and the other side of that coin, socialism, is the ultimate of enforced association. And neither works very well because neither of them can offer a raison d'être. And both believe in Hobbes'authoritarian rule.

So the average person in today's society often finds him/herself adrift in a sea of humanity. (S)he has no anchor, such as may be provided by family. And with no anchor, there is not much reason for one's existence. One of the least destructive tendencies is to turn to narcissism; and one of the most destructive is to do a Columbine, or a Dawson College.

Brain, I don't think this is, technically speaking, a vaccine. I wonder if it's just a convenient, recognizable and analogous term. It apparently functions like a vaccine in the sense that it causes the body to produce antibodies to immobilize the foreign agent. But the antibodies don't target the drug molecule, but the piggy backing protein which is bound to the drug molecule. The antibody won't attempt to destroy the drug molecule, but merely adds to its size so it won't get to the brain. At least that's the understanding I get from the article but I'll admit this is far from my knowledge area.

JK

"anarcho; to me life is simple. You are either a liberal or a conservative. "

False dichotomy. Life is much more complicated than such shallow political either-or choices. Furthermore, O Clueless One, you have never shown the slightest understanding of the meaning of these two political labels.

anarcho: quite right.

jtothemfk: quite right as well. My last post was more of a reaction to the title of the story other than the story itself, mainly because I have a hard time taking the story seriously.

And what of the story itself? Designing antibodies that allow the immunity system to bind or destroy unwanted drugs in the system would act very much so like a vaccine as these antibodies are assumed to be around for a very long time?

Unfortunately, what they are likely to find is that the story itself is one of science fiction. Suppose you take a drug that your immunity system has now been set up to respond to. What happens as a result is that your immune system will get run down any time you take the drug its designed for. And the drugs its not designed for? Addicts often do more than one kind of drug!

And secondly, it will still come down to scale. The more drugs a person takes, the more overwelming it would be on the system, likely to the point, as you take more, that either your immunity system will crash, or simply not keep up to greater amounts of drugs.

And thirdly, the initial high, the one that the addict craves, will not be stopped. It will take time for the immune response to create enough white blood cells to neutralize the drugs in the system. The first half hour or so will still be a window for a high for the drug addict. From there, it will simply get more expensive for the drug addicts "drug of choice" or make them sick, perhaps quite dangerously so.

For these reasons, the story, I believe, is the product of fantasy land as it does not address the root cause of the addiction itself and unless a treatment goes there, its designed to fail.

Addictions aren't just physical, but a combination of mental and emotional triggers as well, so the magic bullet for all addictions isn't going to be a "vaccine", but a combination of changes in thinking, feeling, dryout and detox, and addressing issues surrounding malnutrition. Drug vaccines? Just another money making scheme pushing a bad product, in my opinion.

Jeffrey Helm claims: "We're close to a controversial tool against addiction and overdose."

Well, brain and anarcho, you pretty well told the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the "vaccine" silliness.

Opiate vaccines are contraindicated for people who might need conventional analgesia (pain control--morphine codeine), or who use illegal opiates (heroin) for chronic suffering.

They're probably not going to want to do a vaccine which will rob them of the only pleasure in life, for instance.

They use these drugs for a reason, afterall. We're talking drug addiction here, not quantum mechanics, where predictability is more about probability.

And if the vaccine interferes with ENDORPHIN receptors in the brain, we can look for a whole new meaning for the word, "miserable." "Zombification" might be eligible for upgrading, too.

Vaccines, preventive or therapeutic, work to goad or repair the immune system, either in its specific or non-specific phases. Regular Jennerian(preventive) vaccines are intended to prevent infection by goading the immune system into producing immunoglobulins against specific or NON-SPECIFIC antigens.

Hiv immunoglobulins for instance, are known to be non-specific for 70 different antigens, pathogenic syndromes and toxic chemicals--even HERVS (exogenous retroviruses) present in PREGNANT WOMEN. (See "HERVS in pregnant women")

Therapeutic vaccines treat the infection.

"Tricking" immune system products to work against chemicals for which they are not naturally sequenced will have unforseen side-effects (unintended consequences), so look for recall within years after such a product goes into usage--but possibly long enough for huge profits to be reaped. (think vioxx)

The Pharmies love the word, "vaccines," because once they are approved they can be given to millions of people in the mere anticipation that they might use the positive control item, in this case opiates.

And as for a tool against overdose, we already have one of those called, narcan--naloxone hydrochloride.

Instead of doing promotions for pseudo vaccines, may I suggest our writer recommend to pharmacorpia that if they really want to help they can develope a narcan kit with an EPI-PEN included that will be available to the addict and his/her friends for overdose control.

Narcan is a narcotic antagonist which works by competing with opiates for receptor sites in the brain.

It reverses respiratory depression, sedation and hypotension.

I once watched an ambulance crew administer it to a friend who had overdosed and I thought died, on a stranger's back lawn in Burnaby.

She came out of it but was immediately enraged because of withdrawal, and spent the next two hours cursing the medics and hosptial staff. These were the only two hours in my life during which I have believed in god.

Think opiate Epi-pen. No huge vaccine-like fortunes in it though.

It only saves lives.

Coming from you, I'll take it that I actually do know what I'm talking about. :-) Enjoyed the rest of your post as well. Nice to know about the Narcan EPI-PEN. I wasn't up to speed on what is currently out there for overdoses or drug neutralizers. Good to know.

The drugs it is not designed for would get through because these "vaccines" are drug specific.

I don't know about your comments about this being mere "science fiction" or "fantasy land." It seems pretty real and happening, if only in trials.

Your other two points from your post are well taken and excellent. When an addict who is trying to quit then breaks and needs that high, he/she will likely take whatever amount gets him/her there. With this blocking mechanism in place (which the addict took in his/her earnest attempt to kick) the addict will, no doubt, take large and dangerous doses.

Excellent points for sure and thanks for making them clear to us, Brain

I believe that the magnitude of hard drug addiction has reached a level where it is the modern global 21 centuries #1 industrial disease. It is absolutely social, and the antidote is not what the system is selling. However, its time for a nice mixture of some organic cannabis, ahhh there we go, now to watch Scanner Darkly again!

Language Nazi says: the word "liberal" changes meaning when it crosses the 49th parallel.

And those trials might make it past phase 3 and into production, JK, with money and bribes to the right doctors and all as per usual, but the results once a drug like this gets into production will highly likely, as Truman has stated, become another Viox. But boy, won't these Pharma's make a lot of money in the meantime and the bean counters will give the nod knowing there will be lawsuits anyways, more apples than oranges so to speak...

What was Viox? A product of science fiction and fantasy land for big money. Lets take a pill instead of changing our diet! All in favor?

Wouldn't every parent just love the idea of innoculating their children against the evils of Cocaine and heroin? How about Marajuana? Nicotine? Even Caffine? (well, axe the Caffine, they might need it in college) They won't have a hard time moving it, once it gets past bribed phase 3 trials, just as Truman has laid it out for us.

Nicotine "vaccines" will be the big seller here until the drug fails in public, and for those who truly wish to quit smoking safely, I recommend Allen Carr's "The only way to stop smoking permanently". He has three other books out on the same subject from thin to thick, and this is the thick one I'm talking about, designed for the true reader.

While my own recommendation will reach perhaps 10% of the population (as really, only 10% of us read books after grade school, something to do with survival of the mentally fittest, wups, some of us don't like that expression, lol), the reality is that the addiction to smoking cigarettes is pychologically reinforced by lifestyle habits, social influences, and physical cravings. How successful is the patch? It doesn't take you away from your chain smoking buddies and your morning coffee, or your weekend clubs or your thursday night cards and that is why there is such a high failure rate.

People need to know exactly what is happening to them when they light up or ingest or pop drugs, and they need to know what will happen to them when they stop. They will need to have a plan that plans for success as well, for the body will need to rebuild itself. Success or failure comes down to three critical areas that have to be examined if one is to hope to quit an addiction for good.

- will
- goal
- plan

If any one of these are off, you will fail to succeed in, well, anything. And even if all of them are top notch, there are no guarantee's for success.

Nevertheless, most of us will get second chances. And so, if you were into reading something wise today, "winners and losers are not defined by success or failure, but by their own ability to learn from their mistakes".

Its true that success breeds success and failure breeds failure. But those who have walked through endless failure to emerge as a success, are perhaps, the strongest purebreed of them all. So to this, I say if you want to be successful, look at the examples of success and failure itself.

And where do we so often fail in our life's trials? We make the mistake of trying to do it all by ourselves. Seek the advice and good council of those who have been tested, by success, by failure like Allen Carr, take your pick, but in the end, look for the wise council of the examples of success. They will all tell you the same thing. "I (we) integrated information that I (we) needed from sources outside of ourselves, and had direct help from others at the worst of times." Very few of us, if any, succeed all on our own. Sometimes we need help! And sometimes, its a mere self helper away.

Dangerous territory here for sure. In my current understanding addiction is a much bigger picture in our world than just drug addiction.

See work by Bruce Alexander for ideas on dislocation linked to addiction in our culture.

So I'm thinking about whether human connection can be the vaccine against drug use. I notice that I want to choose meaningful connection with close friends and the local community over drug use. When I try to do this (get a deep trust-filled connection) on drugs I run into problems of not being able to perceive people clearly and not being able to express myself / respond to them gently. And when I am straight and trying to genuinely connect with someone who is high I have a hard time trusting their authenticity (even if I put aside the cliche of 'oh, s/he can't hear me s/he's high).

There's a lot more to this than just staying stright and trying to connect with others. Possibly our socio-economic situations are enmired in addiction energy.

I think RickW is onto somthing with the co-op idea

It's good to see you Bobb999, Truman, and anarcho. Good on ya mates!

Until the social malaise that is the cause of most addiction is dealt with I doubt that this type of strategy will have any success in dealing with addiction. Albeit the "hook" may be the substance or compound, the emotional attraction,sedation and multi-faceted psychological architecture of the additive behavior which in MHO is 95% of the addictive control, will lend itself to other avenues of equally destructive behavior.

But its a drug, and its safe right? If it were'nt the government would protect us from it right? Control that which creates in us a need for escape, and you will control the desire for escapism, an in so doing control that which negatively impacts our lives and the surrounding lives also.

There's already quite a bit of posts here but not sure if anyone asked if the author has any competing interests? That is, has he worked for any pharmaceuticals or even with the makers of this NicVAx?

I'd like to find out, I'm sure he doesn't or HOPE that he doesn't.

Thanks!

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There's already quite a bit of posts here but not sure if anyone asked if the author has any competing interests? That is, has he worked for any pharmaceuticals or even with the makers of this NicVAx?

I'd like to find out, I'm sure he doesn't or HOPE that he doesn't.

Thanks!

Hi masalaman,
i wrote the piece and i have no competing interests. i have never worked for a pharmaceutical company or any of the researchers or makers of NicVAX...

but good on you for asking!

it's always good to double check these things and demand high journalistic standards.

ciao

- j