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Doctors Test Vaccine to Help Smokers Quit
JSOnline via AP ^ | July 27, 2006 | Marilyn Marchione

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."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: denial; health; healthcare; pufflist; tobaccoaddicts; wodlist
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To: Coleus

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1673363/posts?page=17#17


21 posted on 07/27/2006 7:03:24 PM PDT by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Gabz

Could one really smoke dried tomato leaves ? LOL


22 posted on 07/27/2006 7:06:05 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: Arizona Carolyn


>>>I'm amazed, they want to vaccinate us for everything under the sun these days -- heck, soon they WILL vaccinate for the sun...


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1673524/posts
Sun kills 60,000 a year, says WHO


23 posted on 07/27/2006 7:09:16 PM PDT by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: nopardons
Could one really smoke dried tomato leaves ? LOL

I don't see why not.

I've never tried it, but I have smoked cigarettes that contain no tobacco at all.....and I am not talking about those that contain marijuana.

In Delaware there is a total smoking ban, but only for tobacco products...the law is very specific about what falls under the ban, and it specifically states tobacco.

There are actually many cigar and cigarette products on the market that contain no tobacco at all. According to Delaware law, those can be smoked anywhere.

Only one has made the news, but I know of more than one bar that has beaten smoking ban violatins by requiring the state to prove it was tobacco being smoked. Initially it was up to the accused owner that he/she didn't violate the ban, with this it is now up to the state to prove the establishment owner did violate the ban........which of course is the proper state of affairs.

24 posted on 07/27/2006 7:27:10 PM PDT by Gabz (Taxaholism, the disease you elect to have (TY xcamel))
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To: Gabz

Thanks for the ping.

Ah, more social engineering. I'm sure they will want to make this mandatory, if it "works". It is for our own "good", after all.

I agree. I'm over these people too.


25 posted on 07/27/2006 7:32:16 PM PDT by 383rr (Those who choose security over liberty deserve neither- GUN CONTROL=SLAVERY)
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To: Gabz
Hmmmmmmmmmmm....interesting. I didn't know that there were cigars and cigarettes made from non-tobacco products.What are they made of?
26 posted on 07/27/2006 7:45:09 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: Vn_survivor_67-68
The more I learn in life the more angry I become at the insane manipulation of our healthcare options.

Look at the fear when they said we didn't have enough flu vaccine in 2004? It was deemed Bush's fault. My attitude was I don't take the darned shot anyway and most people would be better off not having it.

They force us to give rabies vaccine to our dogs, but if the dog comes in contact with anything rabid the dog has to be re-vaccinated. How crazy is that??

Parvo came from shed virus in the environment; how many people understand how this works, that these are not inane substances going into the body and you can't pull it back out if it backfires.

Newborn infants are given HepB before leaving the hospital with no thought that that child may be nursing and they just screwed with it's immune system and the natural immunity (from disease) it gets from nursing.

27 posted on 07/27/2006 7:48:06 PM PDT by Arizona Carolyn
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To: nopardons

You had to ask me that question, didn't you?

Off the top of my head the predominant leaf for the non-tobacco cigarettes is lettuce. Cabbage, Kale and spinach also come to mind.


28 posted on 07/27/2006 7:48:25 PM PDT by Gabz (Taxaholism, the disease you elect to have (TY xcamel))
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To: 383rr

Gloves are off as far as I'm concerned.

I'll continue to obey posting rules, as I have for the past 5 (almost 6) years.........but none of them are going to egt a pass from me any longer.


29 posted on 07/27/2006 7:51:46 PM PDT by Gabz (Taxaholism, the disease you elect to have (TY xcamel))
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

I wonder if it will end up being in pill form and mimicking Viagra?


30 posted on 07/27/2006 7:58:42 PM PDT by DakotaRed
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To: Gabz
Sorry.............LOL

Lettuce and cabbage and kale and spinach???????????????????

31 posted on 07/27/2006 8:17:36 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: nopardons

I don't know if they're all combined........

But I do know there are some made of each.

I've got a book about homegrowing and then curing tobacco, since I never did put any tobacco in this year, I think I might just try using the curing instructions for the other plants I've got growing and experiment.

What have I got to lose?


32 posted on 07/27/2006 8:37:45 PM PDT by Gabz (Taxaholism, the disease you elect to have (TY xcamel))
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To: Gabz
As I said, I'm truly over these people.

You're making noises like you're resigning your position as a general officer in the army of freedom fighters.

Say it isn't so.

33 posted on 07/27/2006 8:56:52 PM PDT by elkfersupper
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To: Catholic Canadian

It's not a problem. I had to quit in April because of a severe lung infection. It wasn't hard to quit at all. What is HARD is getting your metabolism to work again. Five pounds? That might be so for a 30 year old, but the older you get the more pounds you pile on. I've been fighting it for months now and although I stopped the gain by strict dieting and a LOT of exercise, I haven't been able to take off the pounds that piled on.


34 posted on 07/27/2006 9:09:51 PM PDT by McGavin999 (God watch over the young lions of Israel!)
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To: Gabz

Let me know how it goes! :-)


35 posted on 07/27/2006 9:15:23 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: elkfersupper
You're making noises like you're resigning your position as a general officer in the army of freedom fighters.

Not at all my friend, not at all.

My comment was meant that after danged near 20 years, I'm not putting up with the crapola any more.

I'm tired of being nice, I'm tired of being polite...........I will abide by the posting rules on this site, to the extent the antis do the same. If they don't, I don't........but considering the leeway they are given around here, I'll be amazed if I make it to Labor Day.

36 posted on 07/27/2006 9:47:13 PM PDT by Gabz (Taxaholism, the disease you elect to have (TY xcamel))
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To: nopardons

Will do.

And now I will bid a fond adieu to my friends here...............I need to fulfill a date with my pillow.


37 posted on 07/27/2006 9:56:32 PM PDT by Gabz (Taxaholism, the disease you elect to have (TY xcamel))
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To: Gabz
Thanks!

Good night and pleasant dreams.........

38 posted on 07/27/2006 9:59:09 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

We as conservatives oppose this vaccine because according to John Edwards we don't care about people's health.

Can you just imagine sometime in the near future the msm will bs a story about how smoking and alcoholism can be cured by embryonic stem cell research?


39 posted on 07/27/2006 10:07:22 PM PDT by NorthEastRepublican
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To: Gabz
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.

Then you should be able to quit smoking easily, and you could write a paper about it, showing us gnazis and scientists how smart you are.

All smokers could follow your lead and there would be no need for smoking or smoking bans.

40 posted on 07/27/2006 10:09:26 PM PDT by Moonman62 (The issue of whether cheap labor makes America great should have been settled by the Civil War.)
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