Posted on 07/27/2006 1:44:23 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
MADISON, WI (AP) -- Doctors are testing a radical new way to help smokers quit: a shot that "immunizes" them against the nicotine rush that fuels their addiction.
That pleasurable buzz has seduced Mario Musachia into burning through nearly half a million cigarettes in half a century.
Now the Madison man is among 300 people around the country who are testing an experimental vaccine that makes the immune system attack nicotine in much the same way it would fight a life-threatening germ.
The treatment keeps nicotine from reaching the brain, making smoking less pleasurable and theoretically, easier to give up. The small amount that still manages to get in helps to ease withdrawal, the main reason most quitters relapse.
If it works - and this has not yet been proved - the vaccine could become part of a new generation of smoking cessation treatments. They attack dependency in the brain instead of just replacing the nicotine from cigarettes in a less harmful way, like the gum, lozenges, patches and nasal sprays sold today.
One such drug, Pfizer Inc.'s Chantix, is due on the market any day now. Another, Sanofi-Aventis SA's Acomplia, recently won approval in Europe as a weight-loss drug. If U.S. regulators follow suit, some doctors say they also will use it to help smokers quit, especially those concerned about gaining weight.
"The typical patient is a 30-year-old woman who says, 'If I gain 5 pounds, I'm going back,'" said Dr. J. Taylor Hays, a smoking cessation expert at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who helped test Chantix and other treatments.
Other novel drugs are in development, but NicVax, by Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, a Boca Raton, Fla., biotech company with labs in Rockville, Md., is most advanced among the vaccines.
After four smaller studies suggested it might be safe and effective, the new, larger study was started in Madison, Minneapolis, Omaha, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and New York City. (People interested in participating must contact the company, but few volunteer openings are left.)
The Food and Drug Administration has granted the vaccine fast-track status, meaning it will get prompt review, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse just gave Nabi a second $4 million grant to finance the study and NicVax's development.
"It's going to be a very good way to keep people from relapsing," predicts Dr. Frank Vocci, director of medications development at the federal institute.
Relapse is the biggest problem quitters face.
Of the more than 48 million smokers in the United States, 40 percent each year make a serious attempt to quit, but fewer than 5 percent succeed long-term. Nicotine replacement products combined with counseling can double that rate, but most quitters don't try them. Two-thirds go back to smoking within a month.
"When they have that first cigarette, if they really enjoy it, they're at high risk of relapse. If you can make that cigarette not so good, you've really got something," Vocci said.
The possibility that a simple shot could do this is what lured Musachia to the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention on the fringes of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus earlier this month. He has tried many ways to quit but still smokes.
"I'm sick of it. I'm surprised I've lived this long," said the 75-year-old man. "My kids - they carry on like 2-year-olds when I smoke around them. My animals run and hide."
He and other participants will get four or five shots, either four or six weeks apart, and will be studied for a year. Two-thirds will get the vaccine; the others, dummy shots. Neither they nor the doctors will know who got what until the study ends.
They also will get counseling and must set a quit date, usually around the second shot, because the first shot is just meant to "prime" the immune system. Subsequent doses make it produce antibodies, which latch onto nicotine in the bloodstream and keep it from crossing the blood-brain barrier and getting into the brain where it maintains the addiction.
"They won't get the rush, the reward," but the small amount still getting in "we think is an advantage," because it should lessen withdrawal symptoms, said Dr. Henrik Rasmussen, Nabi's chief medical officer.
The antibodies should remain in the system for up to a year; booster shots may be needed after that, but this needs more study, Rasmussen said.
The new drugs come at a time of heightened attention to helping smokers quit. Last month, the National Institutes of Health held a conference to review the scientific evidence for what smoking cessation techniques work.
Earlier this month, two large scientific conferences were held in Washington, D.C., on the topic.
Research money has increased because of tobacco lawsuit settlements, and insurers increasingly see the health burden of smoking and will pay for cessation treatments that work, said Douglas Jorenby, the psychologist who heads the NicVax study in Madison.
Smokers also are demanding better results than those afforded by traditional nicotine replacement tools. Their desperation sometimes makes them prey to quacks.
The FDA recently moved to block some companies promoting low-power laser therapy, or laser acupuncture, as a way to quit, and a consumer's group is seeking action against a bottled water product that contains nicotine.
"We've got 20 million Americans trying to quit. Among those trying, less than 20 percent are using evidence-based treatments," said Dr. Michael Fiore, director of the tobacco research center in Madison.
The vast majority of these visit a doctor for routine care, yet "few of them, less than a third, leave that encounter with evidence-based advice on how to quit smoking," he lamented.
Regardless of whether the experimental vaccine or other novel approaches ultimately prove successful, they already have had a positive effect - giving some smokers fresh motivation, Jorenby said.
"Every time there's a new treatment for smoking cessation, there are people who have never tried to quit, or haven't tried for a long time, who are going to give it a shot," he said. "People benefit from practice. It usually takes several tries."
I'm sure you two will have plenty of info for us on this new "cure" for smokers.
Let's follow the money, shall we? ;)
"That pleasurable buzz has seduced Mario Musachia into burning through nearly half a million cigarettes in half a century."
That's, approximately, 1.37 packs per day.
"....makes the immune system attack nicotine...."
Yikes! It has long been known that (some) immune responses can (and do) trigger tumors.
I suspect that nicotine addiction is less the problem in the case of cigarettes. I think it's the chemicals the tobacco companies lace them with which is the harder part of the habit to kick. Nicotine in an of itself shouldn't be that addictive, just look at some people who smoke a cigar now and then.
I'm amazed, they want to vaccinate us for everything under the sun these days -- heck, soon they WILL vaccinate for the sun... with no apparent clue that they understand what all these vaccines do to the immune system in us, our children or our pets.
my understanding is that nicotine causes the adrenals to release adrenalin, and that the 'rush' 'of relief from need) is caused by the adrenalin.....meaning that the true addiction is the adrenalin
You could be right. I smoked for about 13 years, and then quit in 5 days, that was over 4 years ago. I tried one of my mum's last week and nearly vomited though, lol.
I haven't been around smokers for a long time too, my mom smokes players light, I just about barfed when I got a whiff of her smoking on my porch... Right in front of my window fan...so much for taking it outside.
"I'm sick of it. I'm surprised I've lived this long," said the 75-year-old man"
Stinky goes to camp.
Whistler's Mother never painted a picture of her son.
Please call me when this new crap works.
Ban it cause it's dangerous????
No way else I could sue them cause I've beem smoking since I was 11.
Wait til they require this to attend school. Just like they want the cervical HPV vaccine to be required.
Mrs VS
Anyone know if these shots have made it to market?
"One such drug, Pfizer Inc.'s Chantix, is due on the market any day now. Another, Sanofi-Aventis SA's Acomplia, recently won approval in Europe as a weight-loss drug."
Pretty soon. ;)
But....but...How can we make up for the future loss of revenue to the public trough?(/lib spin off)
There is a slender thread of hope... this was posted today on a antivaccine list I belong to:
Historical Move Made By Congressman Dave Weldon
Washington, DC - U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, M.D. (R-FL) to introduce a bill that would give responsibility for the nation’s vaccine safety to an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, removing most vaccine safety research from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
Currently, the CDC has responsibility for both vaccine safety and promotion, which Weldon believes has created a conflict of interest. Across the federal government we have worked to eliminate similar conflicts of interest, but with regard to mandatory childhood vaccines we allow this conflict to persist unchecked.
The most notorious example of the CDC and its history of manipulating its own vaccine data is the Simpsonwood, Georgia meeting. A closed door secret meeting convened by the CDC in the year 2000, in Simpsonwood, Georgia, after the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended in 1999 the removal of thimerosal, a mercury based preservative, from all childhood vaccines.
Through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Safeminds, a non-profit organization which supports research on the potential harmful effects of mercury and thimerosal, was able to obtain the meeting transcript which clearly indicated that the CDC recognized the serious danger of the continued use of thimerosal/mercury in vaccines, even through their own study, however, did not want to disclose this information to the public and allowed the continued use of thimerosal to be injected into infants and children by consistently manipulating their own data.
Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, a CDC Epidemiologist, used the CDC’s internal database, the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), for their own study which showed a statistically significant relationship between the amount of mercury children were receiving through vaccines and neurological disorders. No matter how he tried to run the numbers, he wrote, the association “just won't go awayâ€.
The CDC ultimately released a report in which they said thimerosal/mercury in vaccines had no causal effects.
Many private, independent researchers have been denied access to the VSD to conduct their own studies. The only private researchers able to receive access had tremendous difficulty in doing so and their research uncovered the same horrifying results as Dr. Verstraeten’s original study.
There's an enormous conflict of interest within the CDC and if we fail to move vaccine safety out of the CDC, public confidence in the safety of vaccines will continue to erode,†said Weldon. “This bill will provide the independence necessary to ensure that vaccine safety research is robust, unbiased, and broadly accepted.
Bobbie Manning, Congressional Liaison for A-CHAMP, a national organization dedicated to advancing public policy issues for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, has been invited to participate. Through grassroots efforts,
A-CHAMP has been very successful in helping vaccine injured children. "This nonsense has continued for long enough. It is time the power of the CDC be diminished in the area of vaccine safety studies. How unbiased can they be on vaccine safety while promoting these same shots for America's children?", states Manning.
"We are so thankful for the hard work and dedication of Rep. Dave Weldon and his office. He has been very supportive and active in finding fair, honest answers for our vaccine injured children", says Amy Carson, Co-Founder of Moms Against Mercury, a non-profit organization that advocates for safer vaccines.
"This is what we needed decades ago, and I for one, am proud that Rep. Weldon has the courage to stand up and fight for our vaccine injured children", she adds.
Weldon's move comes as the Senate considers legislation that reforms the way the FDA evaluates drug safety issues, but explicitly omits vaccines from further safety reviews.
The press conference will be held Wednesday, July 26, 2006, at 9:00am in US Capitol Room H-144.
www.momsagainstmercury.org
Few people have ever heard of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), yet its agents have infiltrated hospitals, universities, government agencies, health departments, corporations, foundations, and even the communications media. It has existed for more than forty years as a semi-secret, internal division of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), exerting its hidden influence on our society. It has magnified our fear of flu epidemics, scared us half to death about “Legionnaire’s disease,” and turned small clusters of mildly sick fast-food patrons into nationwide panics. It has revived the fear of contagious epidemics decades after heart disease and cancer displaced them as the major killers.
The CDC has developed a remarkable track record for weathering public relations disasters, even managing to come out ahead, and audaciously demanding expanded emergency powers. Its most potent weapon has been the EIS, born in the Cold War as a quasi-military unit designed to counter biological warfare. This clandestine wing of the CDC has proven its ability to detect and choose the most useful disease outbreaks for political purposes, blowing them out of proportion or manipulating public fear by falsely blaming such clusters on infectious germs.
The EIS certainly had its work cut out after the CDC’s swine flu disaster in 1976-77 — no flu epidemic had ever appeared, while the CDC’s vaccine did take dozens of lives and injured thousands more. Only a brand new epidemic, particularly a contagious one, could justify new public health control measures.
Opportunity struck in April, 1981. EIS officer Wayne Shandera, on active assignment in the Los Angeles health department, received a call from Michael Gottlieb, a young immunologist at the UCLA Medical Center. Four patients had Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and serious immune deficiencies. Shandera had already heard a report of a fifth such case. One or two cases usually meant nothing; five seemed more plausible as an outbreak. And all five men were young, male homosexuals, which could be interpreted to fit the hypothesis of a sexually-transmitted infectious agent. These five cases were the official start of what later came to be known as the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) epidemic.
The Medical CIA, Part 1 & 2.......snipped from:
http://209.157.64.201/focus/f-news/1414748/posts
Nanny State PING.
I'm truly over these people.
Contrary to what the nico-gnatzies wish to claim, I probably ingest more nicotine in my diet, because of the number of veggies I eat from the nightshade family, in one than I do from how much I smoke.
Have any of these brilliant minds considered there ARE sources of nicotine other than tobacco? I doubt it.
Maybe I will start drying and curing tomato and eggplant leaves, they are far easier plants to grow than tobacco....Why not? Since apparently it is only the nicotine found in the leaves of tobacco that is the problem.
As I said, I'm truly over these people.
>>>I suspect that nicotine addiction is less the problem in the case of cigarettes. I think it's the chemicals the tobacco companies lace them with which is the harder part of the habit to kick. Nicotine in an of itself shouldn't be that addictive, just look at some people who smoke a cigar now and then.
Bump
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