Oh dear God.......

[Guest guest]

Is this the definition of irony or what?? A drug to prevent drug

use???? What the H#*$^ $???

Texas Researchers Working On Cocaine Vaccine

HOUSTON (AP) ― Two Baylor College of Medicine researchers in Houston

are working on a cocaine vaccine they hope will become the first-ever

medication to treat people hooked on the drug.

" For people who have a desire to stop using, the vaccine should be

very useful, " said Dr. Tom Kosten, a psychiatry professor who is being

assisted in the research by his wife, Therese, a psychologist and

neuroscientist. " At some point, most users will give in to temptation

and relapse, but those for whom the vaccine is effective won't get

high and will lose interest. "

The vaccine, currently in clinical trials, stimulates the immune

system to attack the real thing when it's taken.

The immune system -- unable to recognize cocaine and other drug

molecules because they are so small -- can't make antibodies to attack

them.

To help the immune system distinguish the drug, Kosten attached

inactivated cocaine to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins.

In response, the immune system not only makes antibodies to the

combination, which is harmless, but also recognizes the potent naked

drug when it's ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and

prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate

the highs that are so addictive.

" It's a very clever idea, " says Eagleman, a Baylor

neuroscientist. " Scientists have spent the last few decades figuring

out reward pathways in the brain and how drugs like cocaine hijack the

system. It turns out those pathways are difficult to rewire once

they've seen the drug. But the vaccine just circumvents all that. "

Kosten asked the Food and Drug Administration in December to

green-light a multi-institutional trial to begin in the spring and is

awaiting a response.

Approval would mark a breakthrough in the treatment of cocaine

addiction, which now mostly involves psychiatric counseling and

12-step programs. It presumably would be the final clinical hurdle

before the vaccine -- more than a decade in the making -- might be

approved for treatment. But one expert warns against expecting too much.

" Addiction vaccines are a promising advance, but it's unlikely any

treatment in this field will work for everyone, " said Dr.

Gorelick, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Drug

Abuse. " Still, if they prove successful, they will give those working

in drug addiction an important option. "