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An anti-cocaine vaccine may be on the way
[mis à jour le 4 March 2011 à 16h46]
It is the nature of addiction that it is extremely difficult to overcome … and almost impossible to prevent. However, researchers in New York recently made a major step forward in the battle to free addicts of their dependency. They have developed an experimental therapeutic vaccine candidate … though so far they have only used it on mice.
Under the effect of this vaccine candidate, the rodents’ immune system latches on to the cocaine molecules and literally impounds them before they can reach the brain. This means that the “reward mechanism” that creates addiction does not have the time to work, and the effects of the drug are eliminated.
This approach depends on allowing the human immune system to learn to recognise cocaine and identify it as an intruder.
Since the early years of this century, cocaine use has been gaining ground all over the world. Once considered a drug of the rich, cocaine has now become far more generally used among other classes. Sniffed as lines of white powder, smoked with tobacco or even injected intravenously, coke very quickly brings a feeling of euphoria and a sensation of omnipotence. It also causes an almost immediate state of dependency which it is very difficult to overcome.
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