Vaccine blocks cocaine high

January 16, 2011 at 2:59 pm (Health, Medical Discoveries) (Dieterman)

In the article”Vaccine blocks cocaine high” scientists believe they found a cure to drug addictions including cocaine and heroin. In the study the scientist give lab mice cocaine in large doses each day. The mice eventually become addicted to the drug, then when the mice are addicted they are give a vaccine.

The vaccine works by using a common cold virus taking the parts that make you sick out and keeping the parts that trigger immune system in. Then cocaine is added to the virus so that the immune system sees the cocaine as a threat to the body. After this is done the next time the mice are given cocaine they dong get high off of it and it because the body destroys it before it gets to the brain. This is good because if the cocaine is destroyed than the mice can break their addiction.

“The human immune system doesn’t naturally tag cocaine as something to be destroyed — just like all small-molecule drugs are not eliminated by antibodies,” he says. “We have engineered this response so that it is against the cocaine mimic.”

This shows that the vaccine can be used to trigger antibodies against the drug and stop it before it reaches the brain.

“Our very dramatic data shows that we can protect mice against the effects of cocaine, and we think this approach could be very promising in fighting addiction in humans,” says the study’s lead investigator, Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, chairman and professor of genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.”

This shows that eventually this same testing will be done on humans to see if the vaccine works to stop addition to drugs. In my opinion this is very interesting because the FDA has not approved any vaccine for drug addiction and this may be the first one that is safe to use. Also it is important because it can get people off of cocaine and other harmful street drugs.