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Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

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Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#251
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? Selling fentanyl as candy in every street corner shop is going to fix this?

There is a broad gulf between selling something like candy and criminalizing its possession. You need to be of-age to buy beer. Sudafed is sold OTC but with strict limits. You need a prescription to get many pharmaceuticals.

The reason for the strict limits on pseudoephedrine is because of its use in the manufacture of (prohibited) methamphetamine, so that's a poor example. Prescription drugs are also a bad example because fentanyl (and most other opioids) are already available with a prescription in most of the world.

Alcohol and nicotine are the only real middle ground in the US (maybe cannabis, but that's in a paradoxical legal status right now). Neither really seems to be in a "solved" state. Though I concede that at least alcohol and nicotine seem to be in a better state than fentanyl.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#252
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think there’s a reputable link between red dye #40, BPA, preservatives, emulsifiers(?!) and ADHD, anxiety, and depression. Further, are you claiming meat, tobacco, and alcohol are products of the US pharmaceutical industry?

Literally everything on this list is supported by publicly available, peer-reviewed papers that could be found by 30 seconds of googling, but people downvote instead of being curious and learning something. Here's a layman-friendly article that covers several papers on red dye #40: https://www.verywellhealth.com/red-dye-40-adhd-5220957 Here's a page from Columbia university on BPA: https://www.publichealth.columbia.e…

You're getting downvoted for making a strong causal claim without initially citing any sources, and the citations in this comment don't even support your claim. From your first link:

>It’s important to note that artificial food colors do not cause ADHD.8 One study found that removing artificial food colors from the diet had a statistically significant effect on ADHD symptoms, however. The authors noted that the improvements were modest but still statistically significant.9

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#253
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on your point of confusion? The mechanism of action was explained in the article.

My point of confusion is still my initial question. It was actually the description of the mechanism, as given, that had me questioning it's effects on the overall toxicity/danger of ingesting the drug. "Our vaccine is able to generate anti-fentanyl antibodies that bind to the consumed fentanyl and prevent it from entering the brain, allowing it to be eliminated out of the body via the kidneys. Thus, the individual w…

That helps clarify a lot, thank you.

To answer your question: yes, it does stop mortality. The general cause of death from opioid overdose is respiratory suppression when the brainstem is too “sedated” to continue sending signals to the rest of the body to breathe, so by stopping the fentanyl from entering the brain, this vaccine also blocks mortality.

Hard to do this justice without writing a full essay, but this vaccine need not be seen as an antabuse-like “restriction” on drug users. E.g. for the stereotypical* case of a user who unknowingly gets heroin cut with fentanyl, this would protect them from the fentanyl without blocking the euphoric effects of the heroin. Its most promising utility is in preventing users of other drugs from unintentional exposure to fentanyl via contaminated supply.

*(Yes, I know most street dope is Fentanyl-based these days.)

E: And to elaborate on why they might be putting emphasis on the fact it blocks the effects of fentanyl in their explanation, it might help prevent “unintended” addiction to fentanyl when users are unknowingly consuming it in conjunction with other drugs.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#254

The real issue here that people don't seem to want to face is the WHY. Why do so many people want to check out of life completely by abusing medicine? If we don't address that nothing is going to stop the drug abuse let alone the relapse and overdose. I'm not talking about "more 12 step" here but more of a Frommian psychoanalytic approach. You are broken because society is broken. You have the ability to change yours…

I'm homeless and living in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. People here want you to - Be in a gang (or a prostitute, thief, ex-con and so forth) - Be on drugs (or in rehab for drugs) - Have a mental illness (so you can go to therapy) - Be disabled - Find religion There isn't a position for "I ran out of money and my family wouldn't support me, and at some point finding web development work became too hard as the tech…

I've been homeless and I think part of that is just for someone with no problems it doesn't make sense to be inner-urban homeless in these crim-ridden areas. I assume those people are all fucked up for one reason and therefore as a sane person I don't want to be around them.

I had a very strict rule when I was homeless. Stay away from other homeless people. Camp on the edge of town. Ride the bus into rural areas.

How did I get a job with just the clothes on my back? I hitch-hiked to north dakota in the oil fields where a man is a man and they don't give a fuck what you look like. They hired me to do day labor, and once you have enough money for a van or a short stay airbnb it only gets easier from there.

Get the fuck out of tenderloin, and san francisco at all costs. Hitch-hike if you must. If you want guaranteed housing you can also look into doing seasonal harvesting work for fisheries in alaska. They'll pay your flight from seattle and then cover your food/shelter while you're working.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better way to frame the drug legalization issue is, "should pharmaceutical companies be allowed to profit from incredibly addictive drugs?" Does that framing change your mind at all? Sure, small-time drug dealers are currently allowed to profit from it. Once they get big enough though, they're usually stopped by the DEA. The idea of giving this enormous profit incentive to multi-million dollar corporations with hug…

This is an inaccurate understanding of the drug economy. The drug cartels that supply the street dealers are multi billion dollar businesses rivaling the size of the big pharma corporations. And the DEA absolutely is not "usually stopping" them. They disrupt low and mid level arms of their operations with some regularity, but it does little to stem the rivers of money flowing towards the groups controlling the illici…

> bringing the production and distribution into a moderately well regulated market would likely cause a net reduction of usage and overall harm

I don't understand how adding a profit incentive somehow _reduces_ the usage. Because the government would force less consumption somehow?

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#256

The real issue here that people don't seem to want to face is the WHY. Why do so many people want to check out of life completely by abusing medicine? If we don't address that nothing is going to stop the drug abuse let alone the relapse and overdose. I'm not talking about "more 12 step" here but more of a Frommian psychoanalytic approach. You are broken because society is broken. You have the ability to change yours…

> Why do so many people want to check out of life completely by abusing medicine?

This isn’t how it works.

Few people, if any, want to “check out.” What happens is that people are exposed to opiods via one of two channels (they are prescribed painkillers, or they party with someone who has acquired them) and they quickly get hooked because these drugs are cripplingly addictive.

So the only “why” questions we have to ask are:

1) Why do people take opiods the first time

2) Why do people continue

The answer to 1 is either because their doctor said so, or because they like to party and have no foresight. The answer to 2 is because if they stop, they experience the worst sickness imaginable.

Society is not broken and we don’t need weird conspiratorial explanations for any of this.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#257
This is an utterly horrible idea. People are so caught up in the fear mongering that they forget that fentanyl is used in pain management in end of life care.

Vaccinating yourself against the effects of pain meds is as stupid as it gets. And it gets really vicious once you start pushing this on people.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#258
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but my understanding is that most of the overdosing are from people seeking something else. In some cases it’s akin to a contamination problem.

We are at the point in the fentanyl epidemic where most users are specifically seeking out fentanyl or fentanyl laced drugs.

Citation needed.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real issue here that people don't seem to want to face is the WHY. Why do so many people want to check out of life completely by abusing medicine People start using drugs for different reasons. It's not correct to say that everyone starts abusing drugs as a form of pure escapism. A lot of drug users start because they're simply seeking recreation and someone is nearby to make drugs available to them. It's as si…

I feel like your first paragraph and your second one contradict each other. They start for various reasons, like your example of "seeking recreation" and having a certain person nearby. They don't stop because they cannot stop due to a physical addiction. I do not think personal responsibility is the right topic for that once it has gotten to that point. They've entered a state of physical dependence in which the rea…

> They don't stop because they cannot stop due to a physical addiction.

What you wrote here is actually the issue I was trying to communicate: The notion that addicts are helpless and that the drug and/or society has already determined their outcome is the problem. This sets up a defeatist attitude where people feel like they shouldn't even try to overcome addiction because their contribution to the equation is 0%.

Different addiction programs handle this in a different way. AA/NA famously have the "submitting to a higher power" concept that is very divisive, but appears to work for many people. Other programs basically teach the user that they do have some control over their life, and that they need to start exercising little bits of control to move in the right direction (even if they can't choose to end their addiction tomorrow).

What doesn't work is telling people "it's not your fault" or trying to comfort people by blaming their problems on purely exterior sources. Addiction treatment specialists refer to this as "rescuing behavior" and will go out of their way to discourage it from support groups and in friends and family.

This is the problem with addiction explanations that try to shift the blame to society: They give the user an excuse to continue believing that they are 100% victim with no control over navigating their way out of their situation.

Re: Fentanyl vaccine tested in rats

#260

This is an utterly horrible idea. People are so caught up in the fear mongering that they forget that fentanyl is used in pain management in end of life care. Vaccinating yourself against the effects of pain meds is as stupid as it gets. And it gets really vicious once you start pushing this on people.

You wouldn't give this to the general population, only to addicts that couldn't get clean otherwise.
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