Vaccine Raises Hope for Cocaine Addiction Therapy

ABC News ^ | Oct 5 | Julie Steenhuysen

[chuck_the_tv_out]

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A vaccine helped block the high felt by cocaine users in 38 percent of people who took it, U.S. researchers said on Monday, offering promise of a new approach to treating those addicted to the drug.

The aim is to prevent cocaine’s rewarding effects -- the high -- in order to reduce cravings that trigger drug relapses.

“The concept works,” Dr. Thomas Kosten of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, whose study appears in the Archives of General Psychiatry, said in a statement.

Cocaine molecules on their own are too small to draw the attention of the immune system. To get the body to recognize cocaine, the researchers designed a vaccine that uses a harmless version of the cholera toxin with a few attached cocaine molecules.

When the immune system reacts to the toxin, it makes both cholera and cocaine antibodies.

“These antibodies bind to the cocaine, preventing it from leaving the bloodstream,” Kosten said. An enzyme called cholinesterase breaks down the cocaine and flushes it out of the body.

For the study, Kosten and colleagues studied 94 volunteers -- mostly users of crack cocaine, which is a solid, smokable form of the drug -- who were on methadone treatment at the Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System.

Over three months, the participants either got five shots of the vaccine or a placebo injection.

Those who had the highest antibody response were better able to stay cocaine-free. Although the vaccine does not wipe out cocaine cravings, it may help prevent relapse in some people, Kosten said.

The problem is that it does not create antibodies in everybody. “Twenty-five percent of the people who get the vaccine do not make much antibody response,” he said.

[chuck_the_tv_out]

Found this on an AP story. But AP suck, so I pasted the title into news search & got a less offensive source

[TigersEye]

There is an approach that makes sense.

[Vanders9]

Superficially, yes. Unfortunately, the concept it flawed.

I’m not saying this isn’t clever, and I’m sure that this coccaine vaccine actually “works”, in that it defeats the effects of cocaine, so that people dont get that “high”. The problem is that people are not addicted to cocaine, they are addicted to the “high”. If you remove the high it might prevent addiction, but for the already addicted its not going to help at all.

[ntmxx]

A little bit of too much clear thinking going on here.

Now there’s probably one of those masters of smart (ya know ACORN, Marxist, Political Class types) right now thinking we could put this in the water. Never mind it sterilizes all that drink it…besides, we are already putting so much in the water currently it does not matter; we’ll just replace them with a Trud Worlder anyway…./s

[Thrownatbirth]

The aim is to prevent cocaine’s rewarding effects
The medical community has had a number of drugs for alcoholics over the years, but I've yet to hear anyone claim it helped them stay sober for any significant time.

Medicinal "fixes" like this never work alone. It will be abused by the dedicated junkies who prolong their addiction by getting or appearing straight for brief periods. They avoid the real work it takes to get clean.

They should stop waiting for the "miracle cure" and get their asses into NA.

[Vanders9]

Absolutely right. There has been an “anti-heroin” available for years, that effectively neutralises heroin in the system. Addicts dont like it.

[Thrownatbirth]

Antabuse (disulfiram) helped me keep drinking about ten years longer than I should have. The downward spiral eventually catches up.

[Vanders9]

I’m so sorry.

[Thrownatbirth]

Thanks, but I’m 8 years sober with some help from Above. Life is good!

[Vanders9]

Congratulations!