Heroin Vaccine Found To Work On Rats (VIDEO)

In what could be a breakthrough for addiction treatment, researchers have found it's possible to vaccinate lab rats against the effects of heroin.

The Washington Post reports that a new study by researchers at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., found that the vaccine both dulled the pain-killing function of the heroin and also prevented rats from becoming addicted to it.

A heroin vaccine has been in the works since 1974 when the first findings were published, and since then the Post reports that researchers have been trying to develop vaccines against a myriad of addicted substances including nicotine, cocaine and amphetamines -- though none have ever been licensed for commercial sale.

The study's principal investigator Dr. Kim D. Janda noted that he's never seen such a strong immune response as his team did with this new vaccine. "It is just extremely effective. The hope is that such a protective vaccine will be an effective therapeutic option for those trying to break their addiction to heroin," he said in a press release.

Janda's team have previously created vaccines for cocaine and nicotine with human clinical trials underway, using a method called "immunopharmacotherapy." But creating a heroin vaccine has proved much more difficult because heroin metabolizes into multiple substances that each produce psychoactive effects.

To remedy this, the researchers created a vaccine "cocktail" -- a mixture that slowly broke down in the body, exposing the rat's immune system to different psychoactive metabolites of heroin. While the results were promising, the study also found that their vaccine was specific only to heroin and not to the other opiod-related drugs like oxycodone, methadone, naltrexone, or naloxone.

Janda stressed the importance of this finding explaining that it indicates these vaccines could be used in combination with other heroin rehabilitation therapies.

One of the reasons the team started working on the heroin vaccine is in part because of the increase in HIV infections which is largely due to intravenous drug users and heroin addiction.

WATCH:

Comments

[banker67]

10:24 PM on 07/26/2011

Who Controls Heroin?

1. Heroin is made from opium.
2. The world's biggest opium supplier is Afghanistan.
3. The U.S. military occupies Afghanistan and has had unchallenged control of the skies there for at least a decade.
4. Opium poppies are not invisible.
5, Opium production has not declined significantly, if at all, since the American military occupied that nation ten years ago at a cost of billions of tax dollars.
6. Taxpayers have yet to read that the FBI, CIA, DEA, state police or any other law enforcement agency has ever arrested even one American 'kingpin' (or 'mafioso' or hedge-fund owner or banker) for alleged involvement in the highly profitable, all cash heroin trade. .

Does this make sense to anyone with an I.Q. higher than his or her age?

[sabelmouse]

07:12 AM on 07/27/2011

remember the british empire and the opium wars ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7460682.stm
sadly sea of poppies is not very good unlike gosh's other novels. a pity because they could open some eyes .
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/opiumwars/opiumwars1.html
wars for resources, not new and never a benefit for those countries. opium , oil or wheat.
http://books.google.ie/books?id=3IrKEzgkQkMC&dq=late+victorian+holocausts&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=7cfRS87gMIL-0gT325DeDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

[banker67]

09:27 AM on 07/27/2011

great links, thanks

[JoePesci]

01:48 PM on 07/29/2011

also, It's cheaper, and more pure than it was in history. Funny how Karzai's brother's killing has been so quiet. My Guess is he was getting too powerful in the south for either US or his brother to control. Either that, or Karzai just wants it all for himself.

[banker67]

03:20 PM on 07/29/2011

What astonishes me is that no one -- not FBI, DEA or any other cop group -- seems to even notice that the U.S. military controls the world's opium/heroin supply.

Yet according to all the TV cop shows, heroin remains entirely illegal in the U.S., and street dealers and other small fry still go to jail for selling it.

We are told that we can't destroy the opium crop because then the Afghans won't love us as much as they do now.

Oh.

As long as the U.S. military control Afghan skies and napalm burns, the Pentagon decides how much opium/heroin is produced each season. Without the full approval of the Joint Chiefs, the crop could not exist.

I don't think we should destroy the world's opium supply because it has great use in medicine and I see no big threat in addicts who can easily get a free fix.

But it seems kind of unfair to jail the street hustlers when it's so blinding obvious that the men who literally determine the size each year's opium crop work 9 to 5 in big corner offices at the Pentagon.

Maybe it's more than just 'unfair.'

[peegan]

10:15 PM on 07/26/2011

Let me ask how this is supposed to work. One day you decide you are going to do heroin. So you go to your physician and say, "hey, I think I am going to try heroin and could you give me the vaccine for it so I won't become addicted?"

Now I could understand how this might be helpful if it worked on other opiod drugs (which apparently it doesn't) that are typically prescribed for pain. It might keep the person with an injury from becoming addicted. But heroin is not used for this in modern medicine. And I can not imagine the scenario where a person would be far thinking enough to get vaccinated against heroin addiction. Not going to happen.

[Sonic hedgehog]

12:05 PM on 07/27/2011

Actually it's supposed to be used to prevent relapse for people going through rehab.

[peegan]

12:11 PM on 07/27/2011

People don't relapse do to physical addiction but emotional addiction. I have watched someone pump this stuff into their veins even though they had reached a toleration level so high it no longer had the desired effect. All it did was make them sick.  But they kept on doing it, and threw in some cocaine to boot.

[JoePesci]

01:32 PM on 07/29/2011

certain opiates turn into what is essentially a heroin molecule when being broken down by the liver. Codeine turns to Morphine, etc.
Many people who suffered long term pain, become addicted to Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Roxicet, and suffer terrible withdrawls. They often turn to street pills, at 15-30 dollars each. When they find out that snorting $5 worth of heroin makes the "sickness" subside, they are on the way down the slope of death. Suboxone is a better solution, tricking your body into stopping withdrawl symptoms, and simultaneously making one extremely ill if they attempt to take any opiates while on it.

[MikeyJaii]

10:04 PM on 07/26/2011

+1 for Science.

[Gabriel Cornn]

09:39 PM on 07/26/2011

See Rush Limbaugh there is hope for you after all.

[dogspeed]

09:22 PM on 07/26/2011

Should have worked on Amy Winehouse.

[MikeyJaii]

10:04 PM on 07/26/2011

Ha!

[SmotPoker]

09:16 PM on 07/26/2011

I knew heroin was addictive as hell but I never suspected that even rats were using the stuff like fiends as well!

[MontanaMan]

09:08 PM on 07/26/2011

This med could prove effective in the treatment of heroin addiction for those wanting to kick their habit. Forcing an addict to kick their habit simply would not work. Ask any smoker, those hooked on a far more deadly, stronger addicting drug which is, by the way, completely legal.
Any totally foolproof panacea for addiction would have a hard time getting past the cartels and the members of congress controlled by them.

[bryan broome]

08:57 PM on 07/26/2011

Great. It works on rats, Now the are free to test it out on human rats for 5 decades without any positive results. SOS.

[TXCiclista]

08:52 PM on 07/26/2011

Sigh. Rats always get to kick their addictions first. :(

[David Beeotch Litton]

08:49 PM on 07/26/2011

This hardly addresses the fact that no addict is going to get clean unless they want to, and that requires more than just simply substituting one thing for another. Having worked in the drug rehabilitation industry, I was there when Suboxone hit the market, and was touted as the non-addictive answer to methadone. And yet, we had several patients abusing it. It's the same with non-narcotic painkillers: I was placed on Ultram as a substitiute for Hydrocodone, and the Ultram was twice as powerful as the narcotic. Drug addiction is not something that can simply be treated with more drugs.

[joyfree]

09:42 PM on 07/26/2011

Fanned for empathy.

[peegan]

10:20 PM on 07/26/2011

Who ever told doctors that Ultram was safe to prescribe to opiate addicts should be hung out to dry.

[Spleenz]

10:05 PM on 07/27/2011

Agreed...it's a shame I hear this all the time too. I remember back in my using days buying bottles of this stuff from people not aware of the monetary value, and recreational value. It would be given to them in a trade or something, they didn't want it and I would scoop it up.

[DaveMB]

08:17 PM on 07/26/2011

If an addict can get high on oxycodone, he/she will simply switch. While this research could produce something useful, an addict will simply find something else that works. In the end it comes down to the addict wanting to change.

[joyfree]

04:52 PM on 07/27/2011

You need to post this again. Fanned.

[Spleenz]

08:32 PM on 07/27/2011

I agree with this to a point. I personally started with opioid pills and then switched to heroin. It's cheaper than the pills, that's why a lot of people I know switched to heroin. Price plays a factor...it's not that easy to just "switch" from heroin back to pills, heroin is cheaper and has a much more profound high. One of the many reasons I decided to clean myself up was that I hit rock bottom financially.

[joyfree]

09:44 PM on 07/27/2011

That tends to happen a lot. I was spending my next 4 weeks checks at the the dope man's house before I ever earned them... Fanned.

[nikolasoddfellow]

07:58 PM on 07/26/2011

Mickey has been saved. Hallelujah.

[Mr Anonymous]

08:56 PM on 07/26/2011

I know, that guy has a real problem.

[cromag]

07:53 PM on 07/26/2011

I really, really hope. Horrible drug thats hit close to home too many times.

[Grousefeather]

07:49 PM on 07/26/2011

Well, at the very least we won't have to worry about addicted rats, and with luck, perhaps we can save all the rodents from heroin addiction.

[Barbara Graham]

07:47 PM on 07/26/2011

There is a substance called 'ibogaine,' a drug derived from the root of an African plant. People are given this in a clinical setting, and the results are reported to be 'remarkable.'

Google ibogaine for more info. The substance is illegal in the US. If we already have a potential cure for addiction, why should we have to wait for a vaccine?

[Spleenz]

08:33 PM on 07/27/2011

I've heard of this. I think they do this in parts of Europe.