22 July 2011
Washington, DC US
New shot ‘Exploits a Recovering Addict’s Immune System to Blunt Heroin’s Psychoactive Effects’
Converting Heroin Tar into ‘Monkey Water’ for injection into veins
Kim D Janda and colleagues note that heroin use cost the United States more than 22 billion dollars in 1996 annually due to medical and law enforcement expenses and productivity loss.
Although behavioural therapy and certain medicines help heroinaddicted patients, many experience relapse, lack access to treatment, or develop unwanted side effects from the treatments themselves.
To overcome these challenges, the researchers made and tested a new vaccine formulation that might serve as an additional tool in helping addicts maintain abstinence.
Janda’s team previously reported development of vaccines for cocaine, methamphetamine, and nicotine.
Thus with laboratory rats that were given the vaccine showed less willingness to self-administer heroin and other signs of its effectiveness.
The report explains why the potential new vaccine is an improvement over previous experimental vaccines.
“In conclusion, a vaccine for heroin addiction could prove to be a useful tool for combating heroin addiction, wherein it exploits a motivated recovering addict’s own immune system to blunt heroin’s psychoactive effects in the case of relapse,” the researchers said. Their study appears in ACS’ Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
Over the decades, heroin addiction has claimed many lives and has left people shattered and broken. Now, a new kind of treatment has been found to help people beat this deadly habit with the use of vaccines alone.
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