Using Vaccines To Treat Addiction
Some medications currently available to treat addictions typically work by mimicking a drug in the brain. For example, methadone stands in for heroin and the nicotine patch for cigarettes. Other medications block activity in the brain’s reward system. Alkermes Inc.’s once-monthly Vivitrol injection does this for alcoholics and opioid addicts, while Pfizer Inc.’s Chantix pills block the brain’s pleasure receptors activated when people smoke.
Full article on scientists’ attempts at modifying addiction treatments.
It’s important to note that the article points out, ” Pfizer Inc.’s Chantix pills block the brain’s pleasure receptors activated when people smoke….
By contrast, addiction-treatment vaccines …. do nothing to combat cravings.”
As I understand the action of Chantix, it occupies those receptors on the surface of the neurons involved that would otherwise be occupied as a result of the intake of nicotine. Thus, Chantix suppresses or satisfies a craving. That’s the key to its effectiveness. These vaccines, on the other hand, sound like something out of hell.
I’ve read that one of the fears about developing an addiction vaccine is the possibility people will increase their dose of narcotics to overcome the vaccine response. The result is potentially fatal drug overdose.
The beneift of treating addiction as a disease is that those who are addicted can see it as a surmountable problem, and therefore they will solve it. The downside is that it fosters the notion that addiction is no-fault and it’s not the responsibility of the addictee to solve it; that is, it’s society’s problem, not the individual’s.
I can’t wait to hear about the unintended side effects.
Maybe I’m young and overly optimistic, but this sounds like a good idea to me. What if we developed a medicine that make fast food taste bad? Maybe the answer isn’t vaccines. But, the idea of taking a medicine that negates the guilty pleasure of bad behavior sounds like a cheaper cure for obesity than old-fashioned “eat less and exercise more.”
The trick is to get rid of side effects, which is, of course, a huge problem.
(Think about it: a pill to get pleasure out of doing your taxes, a pill to make your mother-in-law more enjoyable, the possibilities are endless!)