seeker : declared in This New Heroin Vaccine May Offer Addicts a Path to Recovery

RResearchers have developed a Substance abuse vaccine that blocks users from feeling the addiction's characteristic high. Between 2005 and 2015, according to the study, the number of people over the age of 12 that had used heroin in the country doubled, from 379,000 to 828,000. Scientists believed that one possible limitation would be the use of a tetanus toxoid vaccination as the basis for the conjugate heroin vaccine — a preexisting immunity to tetanus might exist in patients due to the prevalence of publicly administered DTaP vaccine. In trials, the vaccine reduced the potency of heroin by more than 15 fold.Authors on the research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, hope that the vaccine could eliminate the motivation for relapse among recovering heroin addicts. Heroin use in the country is at a 20-year high, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Heroin Vaccine May Revolutionize Addiction Treatment

Researchers successfully tested a heroin vaccine on non-human primates that blocks the psychoactive effects of the drug that give users a "high" and feed addiction, reports KGTV. Primates given three doses of the vaccine were inoculated from the effects of heroin for up to eight months. The researchers stress the vaccine is specifically designed to block heroin molecules from reaching the brain and will not work to treat addiction to other opioids. "We believe this vaccine candidate will prove safe for human trials."The primates tested did not experience any adverse side effects from the vaccine. The drug appears to immunize recovering addicts from the effects of heroin, meaning they can no longer use it to get high.


— City News ServiceScripps Vaccine Blocks Substance abuse 'High,' May Be Key to Opioid Crisis was last modified: by>> Subscribe to Times of San Diego's free daily email newsletter! The vaccine works by exposing the immune system to a part of the heroin molecule's structure, which teaches the immune system to produce antibodies against heroin and its psychoactive products. Share This Article:The Scripps Research Institute of La Jolla announced Tuesday that a vaccine it developed effectively blocks the "high" of heroin in nonhuman primates, based on testing by scientists in Virginia. The scientists said that paid showed a higher level of response this time around, showing a sort of immune system memory. Researchers believe that blocking the high of heroin will help eliminate the motivation for many recovering addicts to relapse into drug use.