The National Institute on Drug Abuse is announcing a scientific first – a vaccine for treating addiction. A study published in the current issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry shows that vaccination with an experimental anti-cocaine vaccine resulted in a 38% reduction in cocaine use among study patients with a history of drug abuse. Similar to vaccines against infectious diseases, the anti-cocaine vaccine stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies. However, unlike antibodies against infectious diseases which destroy or deactivate disease-causing agents, anti-cocaine antibodies bind to cocaine molecules in the blood, rendering them incapable of passing through the blood-brain barrier, thus inhibiting or blocking cocaine’s effects on the body. [via NIH News]
Share your comments here.
Tags: blood brain barrier, cocaine, drug, drugs, immunization, NIDA, NIH, psychiatry, vaccine
Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.
October 16th, 2009 at 4:40 am
I pray that you really are finally coming out with a vaccine for helping cocaine users to stay away from this horrible addictive drug. My son is one of those addicts; and he is trying to overcome this, but this drug has such a mental addiction. Please keep me updated on the progress of this vaccine; and hopefully it will be out of the experimental stages.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:28 am
So is this now to be hooked on vaccine as heroine users are more addicted to the methadone used to treat them than the opiate they shot up?
How long is the efficacy of the ‘vaccine’ and to what end is this a treatment?
October 16th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I pray that this will help my son. Are there any clinical trials in process and if so, how does one get involved? If not, how soon will this vaccine be available to the public?
What is the name of the vaccine? I would like to get more information on it.
Elli
October 17th, 2009 at 2:32 am
This is absolutely absurd. The only way free of cocaine addiction is to totally abstain from it as with any drug/alcohol. Dr. Chang, my question to you is do you have any personal experience with addiction? If so; have you tried this on yourself and has it worked?? If not; please stop misleading people to believe that this will work, it WILL NOT!!!
October 17th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
All I know is that when I was addicted to smoking cocaine. I never got the cold of flu or even sick for 4 years! But, I lost everything I ever had and almost my life. You know what cured me of smokeing coke was eatig sushi with lots of wasabi and ginger. The wasabi with a large intake of oxegyn/air created a slight tingle in my head and when I ate 20.00 or 40.00 worth of sushi I was done and my craving was over! Not like coke, I always wanted to smoke more; at least 800.00 dollars worth. then I still didn’t feel satisfied. Sushi try it. Coke heads! I’ve been clean off coke for 17years.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Will this work with other drugs other than cocaine? If not, can the idea be adapted to other drugs eventually? I have a son addicted to Oxycontin. He is on Methodone, but cannot stop taking that drug. Would the vacination help with Methodone addiction?
October 24th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Crime has magnified across the country due mainly to ’street’ drugs, so it’s about time a vaccine has been found. If vaccines could become available for all drugs, the country and the world would change for the better.
When I was growing up there was no such a thing as ‘drugs’, now they seems to be the scourge of the human race.
October 26th, 2009 at 8:07 am
I would like to try this vaccine to see if it would help me! I have been an off /on user for 20yrs