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Anti-Smoking Vaccine Is Nearing the Market
eldavojohn writes "Almost 6 years ago we discussed a vaccine to help people quit smoking as it entered human clinical trials. Now it looks like the finishing touches have been put on a deal that will go into effect once phase III testing of the drug now called NicVAX is completed. NicVAX was developed by Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, who have agreed to license it to GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals; it is expected to complete phase III testing successfully. Others have fallen short of this goal, in pursuit of a smoking-cessation market expected to hit $4.6 billion worldwide by 2016. Nabi has also sold an experimental vaccine for staph infections; and in 2008 we discussed news of a cocaine vaccine."
Not sure why it reminds me of this movie .. :)
I hear will-power and the notion of a life plagued by health problems followed by an early death completed clinical trials sixty years ago. What's more, there are no side effects, and when taken properly, there is a 100% chance of success.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Well, 'tis said that nothing sucks like a VAX.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Step 4, Anti-Smoking Vaccine ...
Step 5, Profit!
Step 8, Anti(Anti-Smoking) Vaccine
Step 9, Profit!
I should get my patents in now!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
To me, it sounds more like the story of Equilibrium...
Palm trees and 8
I stopped through it, and so have millions of others. And for less than $20. Screw vaccines. http://www.amazon.com/Easy-Way-Stop-Smoking-Non-Smokers/dp/1402718616/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258756811&sr=8-1 Best approach I've ever seen to deconstructing smoking addiction.
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Another useful word lost: "vaccine".
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
but I said no, no, give me the goddamn shot.
Like H1N1 vaccines, this anti-smoking vaccine will help eradicate anti-smoking once and for all, along with all the ill effects it's caused. People will be able to stop worrying about anti-smoking when around other people.
(Brought to you by the people who brought you cooler temperatures, larger sizes, wider width shoes, and cheaper price tags.)
So, this new vaccine... Does it come in a smokable version?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
...the word 'vaccine' usually winds up linked to the word 'mandatory'.
Otherwise this would be very good news indeed.
Spend billions on cigarettes, then billions on NicVAX and then likely billions on cancer treatments. All while smoking is still legal? I think we are still doing it wrong. If the government was serious, they would make tobacco a scheduled drug. Wouldn't they?
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
"Hatsukami said NicVax would probably be most helpful for smokers who already quit smoking and are trying to avoid a relapse."
Unfortunately, this new vaccine is highly addictive. Not to worry though, they are hard at work on a cure for vaccine addiction. It is passed into the bloodstream through the lungs...
I wonder if this would be considered overkill, or if it would even work in the first place?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The legality of drugs has nothing to do with safety, it never really has.
Palm trees and 8
So these "vaccines" deliver a weakened version of nicotine and cocaine to our adaptive immune systems to condition them to attack the chemicals later?
Oh, wait, the chemicals are too small for our immune system to detect and disassemble.
Don't call them vaccines. It sounds stupid.
What about people who don't have enough of this magical willpower to quit? What if they don't have enough to gain by quitting smoking to make it worthwhile?
Very true. It's just annoying that a drug that is so detrimental to health is treated as a lesser evil than say pot or LSD or even ecstasy which have almost no fatalities. And then for the big drug companies to sell us an "antidote" on top of the cancer treatment is just missing the point. I guess I am trolling the obvious but I think it would be easier to stop the tobacco trade then sell a patch. And I'm a smoker. Maybe just a ever increasingly bitter one.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Where can i get this and a dart gun... so many people to "fix"
and if regular zombies won't shoot themselves, you know zombies with nicotine cravings will be three times less likely to shoot themselves.
time to stock up on canned peaches and napalm.
lose != loose
My vaccine for both tobacco addiction and alcoholism was marijuana. True story.
This would also lower the average weight and white pasty skin color of the populous
Democracy is the theory that the common idiots know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
I think that by the name of the drug this would only affect nicotine addiction. Would be real shitty if it stopped you from smoking healthy things like weed.
I could briefly see the american anti-drug tsars eyes light up with the thoughts of forced inoculations!
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
The only reason why this is necessary is because a compound that already exists is illegal and not profitable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine
I just hope it doesn't result in the quick extinction of man-kind.
We already have plenty of other ways to help smokers quit that don't torture them like this. Seems like the only real use for this would be if they added it to the seasonal flu shots.
Side effects include:
Presscott Pharmaceuticals, bringing you tomorrow's medicines today, whether you like it or not.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Thus it became trivial to bum a smoke, whenever. It became habitual, and eventually I was buying my own packs of tobacco, rolling papers and filters. I enjoyed it, to be certain, but I didn't really let myself smoke more than two or three cigarettes a day because I knew it has deleterious health effects. It took a while for me to notice any physical effects, and I attribute this to having been working on losing weight and so regularly exercising and taking care of myself very well. It also took a while before I noticed that I... well, kinda always smelled like smoke.
And so, around the same time we both decided we wanted to cut down on smoking or maybe quit. After cutting down some, my roommate stumbled upon enough information about e-cigarettes to intrigue her into buying a starter kit. It came in the mail shortly after the order (the good retailers of these things ship fast) and it was quite exciting to be there when she opened up the package and put it together!
The first thing we noticed trying it out is that it is not terribly similar to cigarette smoke other than the superficial. Yeah, the e-cigarette generates heat as you inhale, but the vaporization point of the "smoke juice" (propylene glycol, nicotine, flavors and preservatives) is sufficiently lower than the heat of burning tobacco that you notice the difference. It is slightly acrid feeling/tasting compared to smoky and tar-laden. Replacing the taste of tobacco you have a huge variety of flavors: espresso, menthol, chocolate, black cherry, applice cider, green tea with honey and even classic tobacco flavors if that's what you really enjoy!
The acrid nature of the vapor from an e-cig is truly only something I noticed at first; like an acquired taste, eventually I learned the nuanced characteristics of the e-cig vapor and I found it much more pleasant than even hookah smoke. It didn't leave any odors or was even detectable from more than a couple feet away indoors! The nicotine is there at whatever strength you specify and so there is that satisfying buzz. After long we were both exclusively e-cig smokers due to how truly delightful it is compared to tobacco. We'll both enjoy the occasional actual smoke, her moreso than I, but it's not even approaching habitual.
I don't see the point of this "vaccine" because I don't think that nicotine is in and of itself all that harmful. It's enjoyable to smoke for many people, and similarly is it enjoyable to vaporize some smoke juice in your miniature fog machine! I suggest to anyone looking to quit smoking to try this alternative. The particular kit I enjoy is the Joye 510 (purchased from e-SmokeyTreats who have great prices [especially with the purchase code "save10"] and fast shipping), and the other fine mini e-cig my friends enjoy is the DSE 901. (The primary differences you'll find are in style of mechanism, whether activated by inhaling or by a button.)
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
You're obviously not a nonsmoker yet. You're still maintaining interest in the cigarettes you own. People quitting often suffer a relapse around two months after quitting because they feel invulnerable and cigarettes are still around. You're going to end up smoking those fuckers in four more weeks. Get them out your freezer, and throw them out of your house. Toss them into a dumpster without opening the pack. And tell all your Facebook friends to promise to never let you have one of theirs.
Seems like they are working on perfecting the Fun Vaccine and pretty soon it will be mandatory because having fun probably kills more people than H1N1 so we need to vaccinate everyone so they can no longer have any fun and live long hellish miserable lives....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
"...Is Nearing the Market" is a damn far cry from "the first of two Phase III studies, which got under way earlier this month".
A phase III often lasts years, and considering the potential dangers of messing with chemicals that mimic neurotransmitters, this will be one. Even if the second runs concurrent or nearly so, I expect FDA blessings no sooner than 2016. If they're run serially, 2020+. "Nearing market" like fusion reactors are nearing break even. Slam.
"NicVAX works by stimulating the immune system to produce antibodies that bind to nicotine in the bloodstream, making the nicotine molecule too large to cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain."
Which doesn't do a damn bit of good for the nicotinic acetylcholine (nAch) receptors in the mouth and throat that react within seconds of taking a drag, or the physiological effects that occur within the first minute, or the significant high and/or reduction in withdrawal symptoms resulting from the association between these, all of which happens twice as fast a peak plasma nicotine levels in the brain following injection into the carotid artery to say nothing of the nicotine binding to enough nAch receptors there to have a central effect. The former is a significant part of the addiction. It's not a strong as the latter, but failure to take it into account makes the difference between 80% success and 80% failure in cessation experiments using transdermal nicotine replacement. Dunk.
Nicotine is far from the only psychoactive in tobacco. At least one other (trimethylnaphthoquinone) has several actions that would make it likely to be involved in tobacco addiction. It is both a dopamine release stimulator and reuptake inhibitor, cocaine being one of the few other substances having both actions. TMN is also an MAO inhibitor, allowing a greater build up of dopamine and its products epinepherine and norepinepherine (those are central; peripherally they're called adrenaline and noradrenaline). The excess of these excitatory neurotransmitters/hormones results in physiological stimulation indistinguishable from that caused by nicotinic action. And that's just one. There's several thousands we haven't studied yet. Even if this were the only one, you could entrap plasma nicotine all day long and this could maintain an addiction, ie. keep someone smoking. Possibly smoking even more and accumulating more damage trying to get as much effect out the the tobacco. The clinical trails aren't testing other sources, only safety and efficacy with respect to nicotine binding. Flush.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
NicVAX works by stimulating the immune system to produce antibodies that bind to nicotine in the bloodstream, making the nicotine molecule too large to cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the brain. That ultimately prevents the pleasure that keeps people addicted to smoking and other nicotine use.
Does this sound really dumb to anybody else? Now, instead of craving to have a cigarette, the addict will crave to skip their NicVAX and then have a cigarette. How would this be any better than, say, giving the addict smokable stick-shaped things without nicotine in them?
Despite basically being a really expensive cold-turkey method, I'm sure they'll make huge profits off desperate smokers.
Property is theft.
Now all we need is the
And the whole world will be a better place.
For myself I think at least in USA the follow-on question is how is there a vaccine for something that by political reasons generates so much revenue in taxes, something like 33 billion?
Yes indeed the health care costs for emphysema and COPD and cancers of lips,gums, larynx, tongue, esophagus and others are like 133 billion.
How far is the concept of vaccine taken if Brazil, China, Turkey, India and USA are still the 5 largest producers of tobacco? Wouldn't the recognition be that this harvest, about 20 billion worth of it has to be ended at least for human luxury use?
It's like after Fleming inventing penicillin somehow we are deluded to think its OK for products full of bacteria to be still on the store shelves and saying well we got penicillin we can also have these too - the penicillin will save us when we want it. That's not the concept of vaccination.
"Wasting your time, cowboy," Molly said, when Case took an octagon from the pocket of his jacket.
"How's that? You want one?" He held the pill out to her.
"Your new pancreas, Case, and those plugs in your liver. Armitage had them designed to bypass that shit." She tapped the octagon with one burgundy nail. "You're biochemically incapable of getting off on amphetamine or cocaine."
"Shit," he said. He looked at the octagon, then at her.
"Eat it. Eat a dozen. Nothing'll happen."
He did. Nothing did.
Armitage closed the door and crossed the room, to stand in front of Case. "You're a lucky boy, Case. You should thank me."
"Should l?" Case blew noisily on his coffee.
"You needed a new pancreas. The one we bought for you frees you from a dangerous dependency."
"Thanks, but I was enjoying that dependency."
"Good, because you have a new one."
"How's that?" Case looked up from his coffee. Armitage was smiling.
"You have fifteen toxin sacs bonded to the lining of various main arteries, Case. They're dissolving. Very slowly, but they definitely are dissolving. Each one contains a mycotoxin. You're already familiar with the effect of that mycotoxin. It was the one your former employers gave you in Memphis." Case blinked up at the smiling mask.
"You have time to do what I'm hiring you for, Case, but that's all. Do the job and I can inject you with an enzyme that will dissolve the bond without opening the sacs. Then you'll need a blood change. Otherwise, the sacs melt and you're back where I found you. So you see, Case, you need us. You need us as badly as you did when we scraped you up from the gutter."
"Are you really a gangster?" The melanin boost hadn't prevented the formation of freckles.
"I'm a drug addict, Cath."
"What kind?"
"Stimulants. Central nervous system stimulants. Extremely powerful central nervous system stimulants."
"Well, do you have any?" She leaned closer. Drops of chlorinated water fell on the leg of his pants.
"No. That's my problem, Cath. Do you know where we can get some?"
Cath rocked back on her tanned heels and licked at a strand of brownish hair that had pasted itself beside her mouth. "What's your taste?"
"No coke, no amphetamines, but up, gotta be up." And so much for that, he thought glumly, holding his smile for her.
"Betaphenethylamine," she said. "No sweat,but it's on your chip."
"Case?" Molly sat up in bed and shook the hair away from her lenses.
"Who else, honey?
"What's got into you?" The mirrors followed him across the room.
"I forget how to pronounce it," he said, taking a tightly rolled strip of bubble-packed blue derms from his shirt pocket.
"Christ," she said, "just what we needed."
"Truer words were never spoken."
"I let you out of my sight for two hours and you score." She shook her head. "I hope you're gonna be ready for our big dinner date with Armitage tonight. This Twentieth Century place. We get to watch Riviera strut his stuff, too."
"Yeah," Case said, arching his back, his smile locked into a rictus of delight, "beautiful."
"Man," she said, "if whatever that is can get in past what those surgeons did to you in Chiba, you are gonna be in sadass shape when it wears off."
"Bitch, bitch, bitch," he said, unbuckling his belt. "Doom. Gloom. All I ever hear." He took his pants off, his shirt, his underwear. "I think you oughta have sense enough to take advantage of my unnatural state." He looked down. "I mean, look at this unnatural state."
She laughed. "It won't last."
"But it will," he said, climbing into the sand-colored temperfoam, "that's what's so unnatural about it."
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
I liked smoking but didn't like the health problems, so I started on Snus. After smoking for 23 years I stopped smoking after a week of snus and never smoked again.
Snus is addictive but benign compared to other tobacco products. It is also delicious and decadent and goes well with beer and video games.
I use nicotine recreationally in the form of patches and gums (combined with some other legal and available supplements that potentiate the effects to a mild buzz).
I am not addicted to nicotine (and I am well versed with addiction having been addicted to various CNS depressants in my past).
I wonder, if this vaccine becomes widely accepted, how it will affect anti-smoking products?
On top of that, are there any plans in place to prevent parents from giving their children this vaccine?
There are numerous federal & state projects and services that rely on tax revenue from smoking.
If it works - be prepared for taxes on such things as sodas, fast food, and other unhealthy things to go up. They'll have to offset the lost revenue.
Is it safe? I would almost bet my house on it.
The Tobacco Lobby and others in government who's districts rely heavily on federally excised Tobacco taxes will have taken every possible shot at this to keep it from coming to market.
I'm sure the FDA has been under a lot of pressure to keep this from being released.
So I'd bet it's had to go very well.
Now, another question - if you had a kid would you give them this vaccine or let them choose?
I'm over 40, and have smoke since I was about 14. I quit for a few years, and a few stretches at a time - but have never shaken it.
The problem is, I *LIKE* to smoke. I *KNOW* its bad for me, but I love the buzz.
Mustering the willpower to quit comes along, but I know that after a few beers or a night out I'm going to wake up with a half smoked pack.
I have a friend that works for Glaxo - the *SECOND* this hits the market I'm getting the name of a doctor and scheduling an appointment to get it.
Knowing that no matter what bad choices I make, I'll never get that buzz again from a smoke... there will be no more reason to smoke.
I'll just keep smoking till it just sucks to keep putting burning leaves and paper in my mouth (sounds funny when I put it that way).
Without the buzz, I suspect I'll someday just put them down and never pick them up again.
And there's another reason to quit besides your lungs. Diabetes. Read how your body reacts when nicotine enters the bloodstream.
/me sips his coffee and ponders a new sig...
Man, that can't be a good idea.
Remember Rimonabant, the wonder anti-obesity drug that messed with the endocannabinoid system? That made people suicidal for fuck's sake. (It was an endocannabinoid receptor antagonist, see -- "anti-munchies", basically.)
post-vaccine, i can smoke purely for pleasure?
many asthmatics can tell you, a couple of smokes is not a negligible amount of tar and other noxious matter deposited in your lungs.
people that can give up smoking find that their lungs recover and they become re-sensitised so that it is painful to smoke. (as long as they dont actually relapse to regular smoking)
There's a great quote attributed to Mark Twain: "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times."
(Not speaking from experience; I've never touched the things and second-hand smoke makes me nauseous).
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
I was already vaccinated when I was a kid. My father said, "so help me God, if you ever smoke I will kick your a$$." He meant it too.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Lots of studies show the positive effects of nicotine on mental activity, ability to concentrate, etc.
Many adults need it, so it isn't just the addictive qualities of nicotine that keep them using it.
Nicotine isn't particularly good for you, but it is the tar in tobacco that is the killer. As the FDA has long prohibited any attempts to administer nicotine outside of 'natural' methods, and therefore there were no smokeless cigarettes, the FDA is directly responsible for the 50% of all deaths that are due to some effects of smoking.
Regulations are programming for society. Programming for an open system is a conceptual oxymoron.
This:
That was the toughest for me, drinking coffee and coding. Both activities were ones that I just sort of subconsciously required a cigarette for, and I'd chain smoke when I was programming.
For any true /. smoker, this is the pivitol statement of our addiction. I don't understand the instinctual chain smoking either, but it is these types of associations that makes quitting smoking so difficult. If it wasn't associated with other (very) pleasurable activities, quitting would be easy.
Side note, if the vaccine aleveates the cravings as the patch does, then I can't wait to use it (even if it takes a years worth of doctor visits/shots). I would like to enjoy the other fun activities without constantly craving a cigarette (or chain of them) in order to still enjoy them.
Judging from every single fucking thing you just said (not to mention grammar - "we are be upset"? WTF? - and spelling), your children will grow up retarded even if every smoker on the planet quit today.
Seriously. Not everyone is genetically prone to even moderate damage from smoking (and if you are bothered by "foul" air, move out of big cities - I developed sinus problems for a while, tried cutting back on the smokes, adding more cardio to my exercise routine, etc. - didn't change anything, moved out of the city and the problem cleared up...what a surprise!). Not a single person in my family (both sides, at least 3 generations back, all of them smokers) has died from lung cancer or heart disease. Two from alcohol-related deaths, one suicide. A couple in various wars (I'm first-generation German-American or whatever you want to call it on one side and Irish been-here-for-generations on the other, so about every male member of my family has fought on various sides of every war in the past hundred years). Everyone else died at past 80 (or is still alive).
High intelligence, physical strength, mild insanity, insomnia, and alcoholism run in my family (both sides). I think there's a slight tendency towards homosexuality on my mother's side (but who cares about that? Your bedroom, your business). Nothing else. I can count the number of heart attacks amongst those 3 generations back on one hand. Nervous system damage from second-hand smoke? Show me something credible to support that and I'll buy you a beer.
I think Anonymous Coward is the worst fucking idea that /. has. If you can't own up to your statements (and I've made a few dumb ones myself, I'll admit it), then just shut up and read.
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
Some of us would dearly like to kick our caffeine habit that's become part of our routine. It makes us impatient and irritable.
Either you smoke or you don't, that's your choice.
Addiction isn't the problem with smoking. The side effects of being a smoker--smelling bad, getting sick more easily, and risking lung cancer et al.--are what's wrong with smoking.
Personally, I love to smoke, but I hate being a smoker. Smoking a few cigarettes a week isn't a problem from my point of view, but it may not mean that you're not addicted to them.
Check out that link for some very interesting and, I think, necessary reading.
Cheers.
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
I quit like, 8 months ago after smoking for 15 years- I coulda just waited for the shot- ah well it wasn't so bad with the patch