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Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

cen.acs.org

21–30 of 42 posts

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you or me that’s a really valid concern, but the damage to someone from opiate abuse is so extreme I think they’d take that risk. In fact some might even see the inability of a well meaning medical professional to dose them with an opiate as a feature, not a bug.

The hard part is that anesthesia is not just for comfort. I am not a doctor, but having the body in a low excitement mode for complex surgery must be an advantage. So resistance to anesthesia could mean no surgery beyond the most basic ones.

I wouldn't go that far.

There are a lot of options for anaesthesia, and many of them are not opioids. For example, there is a whole set of halogenated ethers like sevoflurane and isoflurane (the most typical inhaled anesthetics). Their chemical structures and mechanisms of action are very different from opioids, so the vaccine-produced antibodies would not recognise or react with them. This is true for many of the other options (benzos, ketamine, even xenon gas).

That said, opioids are useful. They are very good analgesics (pain relievers) and can be used as anesthesia in certain situations, like cardiovascular patients. However, for most people in most situations, there are other non-opioid options.

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#22
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More recent knowledge shows that Tylenol works better for pain management.

You're not cutting somebody open with acetaminophen.

To be fair, you're not cutting someone open with (only) codine or something like that either.

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#23
There must be a dose where the volume of heroin outstrips the body’s ability to generate antibodies, resulting in opiates passing into the brain. Addicts who have taken the vaccine will increase their chance of overdose when they relapse because they know just one balloon isn’t going to do the trick. And slam 5 balloons instead.

Also, opiate receptors serve a purpose in pain relief and feeling pleasure when the brain secretes endorphins. The article doesn’t cover whether endorphins will trigger the immune response in people who have been modified by the vaccine.

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#24
Wait, so we we invent some great drugs for very specific use cases, prescribe them to the masses, just to find out that we created an epidemic and, then, instead of going back to prescribing it only rarely, invent a new drug against the abuse!? I don’t get it

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#25
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any of the people involved in the science here want to be doing paliative solutions, but rather it's the best they can get funding for. It's much harder to fund "we have to completely rework our public health infrastructure" (in the US, at least), then "We can help save these lives in ".

> I don't think any of the people involved in the science here want to be doing paliative solutions, but rather it's the best they can get funding for. Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote An American Sickness about this phenomenon. This essay is a good preview: How Economic Incentives have Created our Dysfunctional US Medical Market - https://medium.com/@RosenthalHealth/how-economic-incentives-...

The claim in that article--"a lifetime of treatment is preferable to a cure"--is bonkers.

It might be true if there was only one pharma company, but surely most companies would prefer that you buy their one-time cure than become a lifetime customer of their competitors. Diabetes is a particularly bad example because an ungodly amount of time and money has been spent trying to protect, repair, or regrow beta cells. Despite this, we have made very little progress. However, Accu-Chek is not bribing researchers to tank their experiments in the hopes of selling more test strips. The problem is that biology is absurdly complex and messy.

Plus, we have a nice counter-example. Until recently, patients with Hepatitis C were treated with a long course of interferon (6 months to a year), with relatively mixed results and fairly nasty side effects. About 50% of patients did not clear the virus, and needed liver transplants.

In 2013-4, Gilead got approval for sofosbuvir, which needs to be taken for only 12 weeks, has a much higher cure rate, and more mild side effects. To be fair, it is eye-wateringly expensive, especially in the US, but that's one way to make 'cures' work.

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#26

What is going to be an issue, is that opiods (like heroin, Fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone) actually have a clinical use apart from the abuse. So either the vaccine is very specific and just changing from say fentanyl to another of the many available opiods defeats the vaccine, or else it renders a whole class of drugs that may be legitimately used for pain management or anesthesia during surgery no longer able to be u…

My thoughts exactly. So somebody gets this vaccine and then breaks their arm or goes into surgery, and suddenly there is no pain treatment available to them because of the vaccine.

I was under the impression that past heavy (ab)users of opioids no longer get any analgesic benefit from them?

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#27
post #3

> Rather than activate the receptor, another drug called naltrexone blocks the receptor and can decrease cravings over time. Naltrexone is essentially a vaccine against both opioids and and alcohol. My recovered-alcoholic friend found that Naltrexone eliminated her ability to consume large amounts of alcohol. But she drank "to make it all go away", and Naltrexone didn't provide any relief for her emotional problems.…

> I told him I thought my friend (whom I've mentioned here before) was predisposed to addiction on account of her being adopted How on earth does that follow? Adoption, in and of itself, is not an "adverse childhood experience". You seem to be equating it with abuse, which it clearly isn't.

The children up for adoption are not drawn at random from the population.

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#28

What is going to be an issue, is that opiods (like heroin, Fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone) actually have a clinical use apart from the abuse. So either the vaccine is very specific and just changing from say fentanyl to another of the many available opiods defeats the vaccine, or else it renders a whole class of drugs that may be legitimately used for pain management or anesthesia during surgery no longer able to be u…

The main pathway for opioid addiction is surgery. Doctors who prescribed the drugs can also prescribe an end to it too. Simplistic yes, but such a drug could prevent a lot of harm. Considering how much the mainstream dialogue is about illicit drugs its probably time to start talking about the far more common addictions and associated problems.

> The main pathway for opioid addiction is surgery

Do you have a source for that please? Other countries who don't have an opioid crisis don't prescribe opioids for long term pain as much, but continue to prescribe opioids for acute pain, including surgery.

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. So somebody gets this vaccine and then breaks their arm or goes into surgery, and suddenly there is no pain treatment available to them because of the vaccine.

I was under the impression that past heavy (ab)users of opioids no longer get any analgesic benefit from them?

Yes, I had a friend who was an ex heroin addict, she needed huge quantities of any sort of painkillers to get any effect.

Re: Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

#30
post #3

> Rather than activate the receptor, another drug called naltrexone blocks the receptor and can decrease cravings over time. Naltrexone is essentially a vaccine against both opioids and and alcohol. My recovered-alcoholic friend found that Naltrexone eliminated her ability to consume large amounts of alcohol. But she drank "to make it all go away", and Naltrexone didn't provide any relief for her emotional problems.…

As a quite heavy use alcoholic, I would gladly test any vaccine that worked on alcohol.

Also, I've had a pretty amazing childhood with awesome parents. I still became addicted to cocaine a few times and I've done tons of drugs since my teens up to a couple years ago.

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