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Vaccinated Against Vices?
Smoke Me A Kipper writes "The Independent is reporting that the latest UK government sponsored quango, charged with looking at the problems of drug abuse, is to recommend a national anti-addiction 'vaccination' scheme. Apparantly, trials are already in progress. No details as to whether it would be mandatory. Personally I find such an idea utterly shocking - what happens when you find yourself injured in later life and morphine based painkillers no longer work? I wouldn't be surprised to find existing phamaceutical companies excited by this, having to replace cheap drugs with something new, which they can patent and control."
Yeah, no shit! And higher doses of coke are supposed to be better for you, are they?
This anti-drug medication is expected to be available to users within the next two years in the form of a nasal spray.
Is that poetry or what?
Mom says my
See, I'm not sure that drug abuse is necessarily the sign of greater problems any more. I used to, but then I realised that almost every civilization that ever existed has invented several creative forms of getting wasted. Hell, even elephants and monkys have been known to get ripped to the tits on various forms of fermented sugars and berries.
If reality is so boring that even chimps can't stand it, what chance have we got?!
I had a dream, bright and carefree, but now there's doubt and gravity
It's the usual quick-fix mentality. Instead of asking what problems cause people to turn to drugs (mental disease, poverty, social problems, etc.), a syringe is supposed to fix it. It's the same quick fix mentality that dominates so much of politics, and it's not going to work.
Instead of some people sedating their problems and imposing health care costs on everybody else, which is bad enough, you are going to have the same people doing something else self-destructive and probably even more destructive to others.
And for that quick fix, you risk several deaths a year from medical mistakes (wrong injection, infection, etc.) during vaccination, as well as unknown long-term consequences and the possibility that important future drugs won't work.
This is rather remarkable in that there is no discussion of the risks of such a treatment. Drugs generally work by either mimicking neurotransmitters themselves, mimicking their precursors, or by mimicking other chemicals that cause a release of neurotransmitters. This is true of both recreational drugs and prescription drugs like Prozac or Zoloft.
Cocaine, for instance, is known to work by effecting a massive release of dopamine into the brain, which is then reuptaken quickly, providing the high. Alcohol similarly effects a release of GABA (among other neurotransmitters), while GHB is actually a precursor to GABA itself and is converted thus in the brain.
It would seem to me that messing with the pathways through which any given drug actually works, unless it is almost impossibly specific, would mess with the normal operation of the brain. What's to say that a "vaccine" designed to prevent cocaine's method of activity won't prevent or at least diminish all such activity in the brain? Parkinson's Disease is caused at least partially by screwy dopamine levels in the brain. Who knows if injecting people with a virus that prevents rushes of dopamine won't affect the normal rushes of dopamine that occur during life, like after a particularly good orgasm or a 10K-run?
It just sounds like fucking with neurotransmitters, especially on a genetic level, is a recipe for disaster.
There is a good article about it here. Here are a few choice quotes.
"And, sure enough, in the late 30s and early 40s, in five really flamboyant murder trials, the defendant's sole defense was that he -- or, in the most famous of them, she -- was not guilty by reason of insanity for having used marijuana prior to the commission of the crime."
"Doctor, when you used the drug, what happened?" "After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette, I was turned into a bat."
"You know what the women testified? In Newark they testified, and I quote, "After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette my incisor teeth grew six inches long and dripped with blood."
2004, and the madness still hasn't ended. Now we might even start vaccinating people so that they don't try out these demonic drugs. Jeez, someone get me off this damn planet.
Strange, I have no traces of ANY campaign to remove the right to privacy, speech, religion, anonymity, association by anyone except the folks on the ultra right. Privacy? Ask John Ashcroft why he needs individual medical records to argue a federal case. Speech? ask the people banned to the "First Amendment Areas" that are out of sight and the people who were arrested for wearing the wrong T-Shirts at a Bush rally. Anonymity? ask the guy from Nevada who just lost at the case at the Supreme court about whether he was required to present ID to a police officer. Association? ask the Fresno Peace movement or the Association of Friends (Quakers) who were infiltrated by anti-terrorist agents. There are a lot of people who seem to be mentally in a Bizarro world, and physically in the real world.
What's worse is that the anti-heroin vaccination has to be heated on a grubby tea spoon before being injected.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
You can't vaccinate against morphine ... it modulates ion channels which you would have to somehow remove
...and then you would have serious issues.
Yes you can. You can produce antibodies that bind the active parts of the appropriate drugs, or that bind to the receptors in ways that block them without activating them. These will reduce or eliminate the effect of the drug on the receptor.
Absolutely:
For starters, if it blocks the drugs, what do you want to bet that you'll also block the effects of the natural compounds. Then those vaccinated will be something like a drug addict in withdrawal FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. Everything would HURT. Just sitting around would hurt. Exercise would hurt more. Painkillers wouldn't work.
Imagine one of these kids in highschool - the worst of "whiny wimps" just sitting there. Sports would be agony. And that's before the unimunized jocks start beating on him to watch him squirm.
Then there are the feedback mechanisms modulating the number of receptors, production of neurotransmitters, and production of antibodies. The reduced performance of the neurotransmitter-receptor system will result in the increase in the number of receptors (already known to be part of the addiction mechanism) and/or the increase in the production of the neurotransmitter.
But with antibodies to naturally produced protiens, this could produce more stimulation of the immune system: More antibodies against the receptors. Inflamation (of the BRAIN!) in the affected sites. Possible immune cascade from the inflamation causing the production of antibodies to OTHER self-antigens, and a runaway autoimmune disease akin to a cross between Graves and Lupus.
Then there's the question of what this will do to other behavior. It's making a MAJOR change to the internal reward pathways of the brain. How will these people do in school? On the job? How will they respond to advertising? Political propaganda? Religious indoctrination?
There are indications that psycopathy is the result of a failure in an emotional pathway, leading to both loss of guilt feelings and risk-taking in an attempt to achieve any feeling at all. Is THIS the pathway in question? Will an "immunization" program raise the incidence of psychopathy from about 1% of the population to the bulk of it? Will we have a generation of used car salesmen, confidence men, gangsters, death-squad members, and political dictators?
Or is it NOT the same pathway, but one that produces some OTHER pathology when it fails? Will we find ourselves with a generation of some OTHER, formerly-rare, pathological stereotype as the bulk
of our population?
Fooling around with something as basic as the reward hardware of the mind is NOT something you can do and expect no undesirable side-effects.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The principle reason that drugs are peddled in the manner that they are is because they are illegal. It's a very lucrative black economy the dealers have going on there. Massive amounts of untracable cash. So you try your best to get little Johnny hooked, and he keeps coming back to you like a rat to a feeder bar. By the time he gets so out of control that he is apprehended, he's too far out of his gourd to even provide applicible data about you to the authorities. All the while you're laughing all the way to the proverbial bank.
Make it legal, force clean production (like tattoo parlors, for example), and tax it. The gov't will make money, lower the SHIT out of the crime rate not by making drugs legal, but by disassociating money with drugs and I can almost guarantee the rate of addiction will go down. People like doing illegal things. Life is pretty fucking boring when you're broke, dead end job, creditors railing on your ass. People turn to relentless drug use. I blame society. I know PLENTY of people that can handle doing a few lines of coke every now and again. But they're criminals, even though they are just having a good time, on their own, and not causing problems. In this day and age, however, many people automatically assume drug use == bad person. I also know plenty of people who started drinking/smoking/other shit SIMPLY because it's illegal. So, logic says to eliminate the artificial reason. People are gonna do what they want when they want. It can't be stopped, so why not play into it and stop making people criminals?
Also, the person who mentioned "A Clockwork Orange" is dead on. Controlling behaviour is the absolute WORST way to get around problems. It's a bandaid, nothing more. Governments should strive to create a society where people won't have to turn to criminal behaviour to meet their needs. Not to make everyone a lab rat.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
People are creating pills to immunize people against fealings of guilt and remorse.
Slightly ironic that the
Like all medical treatment it may be refused by the patient (or thier guardian, in the event of a minor, or other assignement of power or attorney), in general.
There are some case where in order to do A, you need to take medication B (e.g. hepititus vaccinations for medical people, tetnus et al for military etc). That's a seperate class, however.
There are two cases where refusal to take medication is overridden. The first is when the person making the request is 'not of sound mind'. A very dubious grey area, intented to allow the saving of sucide attempt and similar, can get very long and drawn out. I belive that this is the same as in the USA.
The other case is when there is a clear danger to the health of the nation if you do not take the medication. This law was enacted with the specific intent of forcing people to complete antibiotic courses for Multiple Drug Resistant Tubercalosis (MDR TB). MDR TB can only be treated by a cocktail of drugs, and if the course isn't completed, then there is a change of strains of the bug resistant to them developing. TB is near endemic in some low income areas, and many patients were refusing to compelete the course once they felt better. After the they had to beef up the cocktail of antibiotics, the law was passed. It would also apply to forcing someone to complete treatment for MRSA or VRSA (Methycillian and Vantymicin resistant Stah Aurus respectivly), but given that your in an ICU for those treatments, it's never come up. MDR TB patients have near full activity during treatment, hence the problem. I understand that it takes a court order, but that the issuing of one would be routine. They are rare devices.
The above law doesn't apply to an immunisation, as it doesn't risk immediate harm to the population if you don't have it. That applies even more so for an immunisation against a drug (e.g. Antabuse or similar).
Being in a high risk group for immunsiations, due to autoimmune disorders, I researched this. Granted, this is all dated 5 ish years ago, but I'm not aware of any major changes. As is stands, there is no way to force a person to have any immunisation, nor to refuse any service (education, welfare or what have you) to someone who does not have that immunisation. The most extreme they can get is to refuse to employ you in certain, specified, jobs (medical or medical related, military and a few others). That's the law. In practice, certain immunisations are administered as routine, and the parents would have to be upfront and direct to refuse them, and tend to get a lot of FUD in response. There's a degree of social pressure applied, which varies depending on, well, which way the wind is blowing it appears.
In short, no, as I understand it; the govenrment can't force an immunisation on the general public, and treatment only in specific cases. Forced drug immunisation as part of a criminal sentance might be possible, but not under current legislation, as I understand it.
Apply (un?)usual IANAL but I researched this a while back disclaimer here.
What have the pharmas cured in the past 50 years?
No... For the past 50 years they've been concentrating on *treatment* not *cures*. Because they don't want a one time sale... they want an annuity.
If Salk hadn't of cured Polio when he did, we wouldn't have a cure for it.... nope, we'd have a dozen different drugs to allow people to live better with it.
--Rob
I am a chronic pain patient
I have a degenerative rheumatoid arthritis which has decided to rest in my spine, hips, and hands mostly but affects every joint in my body from time to time, chronic myofascial pain, neuropathy and a neurological condition which causes hypersensitivity in the nervous system to everything (not just pain, bright lights, sounds, temperature). I didn't ask for these things, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Having these and still trying to have a life and make it to work is difficult, the pain is off the charts, and depressingly I know it's going to get worse as I get older and end up with a lot more joint and bone damage. There is no cure for any of it, just treatments to slow down the progression and mask the symptoms a bit. This is not how I expected to feel at age 32.
Having this, I'm very up on the research into pain management. If something out there has been tried, the odds are I've heard of it and I've read the trial. This isn't the first attempt to block euphoria from opioids or make drugs "unabusable". It is the first I've heard of a vaccine (well, more like a phage in this case) against it.
There are not a whole lot of formulations out there that are suitable for long term use for those in severe chronic pain. There are extended release versions of Oxycodone (Oxycontin), a few extended release versions of Morphine (Kadian, MScontin, Avinza), a transdermal patch called Duragesic which delivers Fentanyl and can provide relief for up to 72 hours (but some people need to change them every 48) if you can get it to stick, Methadone (which despite it's long half life doesn't provide relief as long as it provides relief from withdrawal symptoms. It is, however, a very good pain killer once the dosage gets adjusted correctly.), and a few non-compounded instant release versions of Oxycodone & Morphine out there.
There are tons of choices for moderate to severe acute pain, but most of those are combined with Tylenol or Aspirin, Caffeine, & Ibuprofen which greatly limits their dosage ceiling because they cause liver & kidney failure in high doses over prolonged periods of time. (You know them as, Tylenol-2-3-4, Vicodin, Norco, Vicoprofen, Tylox, Percocet...etc) Other great choices for acute pain include Demerol, which tends to cause a buildup of metabolites that can cause seizures with chronic use -- but it's a great drug for acute pain.
It's much safer to be on the "long" drugs than the "short" drugs if you are going to need them for years on end. Misguided pressure from the federal government has made doctors leery of scrutiny if they write the long drugs. It's also had the effect of making doctors less likely to manage pain period. More than 60 million Americans suffer with some kind of chronic pain, and the odds are just about all of us will at some point in our life as we age.
Various different drugs have been tried & mixed in with opioids. Purdue Pharma recently tried to make a version of Oxycontin with Naloxone in it. The problem is, by blocking these receptors which also produce euphoria, they also block pain control. Their conclusion was, it couldn't be done with the technology they had to work with and still deliver a product which had the full range of pain fighting abilities Oxycontin does. Another procuct on the market (Talwin) has formulations that use similar technology, but has a very low ceiling on it's benefit for that reason.
Something like this vaccine being mandatory terrifies me. I'm having a hard enough time finding relief as it is, and I take drugs many times more powerful than morphine to be able to function on a daily basis. Those in pain have a natural protection mechanism against the euphoria and sedation these drugs produce. Extreme pain blocks those signals in the body as well as ones for respitory depression. If someone without extreme pain & opioid tolerence were to try to take the same doses of the medicines I use - they would end up in the hospital or
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.