Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite past failures

Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by RcouF1uZ4gsC on Thursday February 22, 2018 @09:19PM (#16443675)

What is going to be an issue, is that opiods (like heroin, Fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone) actually have a clinical use apart from the abuse. So either the vaccine is very specific and just changing from say fentanyl to another of the many available opiods defeats the vaccine, or else it renders a whole class of drugs that may be legitimately used for pain management or anesthesia during surgery no longer able to be used for potentially the rest of the person's life.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by freedomben on Thursday February 22, 2018 @10:58PM (#16444095)

My thoughts exactly. So somebody gets this vaccine and then breaks their arm or goes into surgery, and suddenly there is no pain treatment available to them because of the vaccine.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by danieltillett on Friday February 23, 2018 @04:53AM (#16445311)

I was under the impression that past heavy (ab)users of opioids no longer get any analgesic benefit from them?

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by Blindedwino on Friday February 23, 2018 @05:24AM (#16445441)

Yes, I had a friend who was an ex heroin addict, she needed huge quantities of any sort of painkillers to get any effect.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by epmaybe on Friday February 23, 2018 @08:07AM (#16446060)

It goes back to basically any medication that acts on G Protein Coupled Receptors (of which opioid Receptors fall under). If given the same dose for over 10 days, by day 3 you are seeing a significant loss of analgesic effect.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by freedomben on Friday February 23, 2018 @04:34PM (#16449829)

It depends on how long in the past things were. Over time the body gets closer and closer to "normal."

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by IntronExon on Thursday February 22, 2018 @11:14PM (#16444169)

For you or me that’s a really valid concern, but the damage to someone from opiate abuse is so extreme I think they’d take that risk. In fact some might even see the inability of a well meaning medical professional to dose them with an opiate as a feature, not a bug.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by hrktb on Friday February 23, 2018 @12:51AM (#16444525)

The hard part is that anesthesia is not just for comfort. I am not a doctor, but having the body in a low excitement mode for complex surgery must be an advantage.

So resistance to anesthesia could mean no surgery beyond the most basic ones.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by mattkrause on Friday February 23, 2018 @03:09AM (#16444922)

I wouldn't go that far.

There are a lot of options for anaesthesia, and many of them are not opioids. For example, there is a whole set of halogenated ethers like sevoflurane and isoflurane (the most typical inhaled anesthetics). Their chemical structures and mechanisms of action are very different from opioids, so the vaccine-produced antibodies would not recognise or react with them. This is true for many of the other options (benzos, ketamine, even xenon gas).

That said, opioids are useful. They are very good analgesics (pain relievers) and can be used as anesthesia in certain situations, like cardiovascular patients. However, for most people in most situations, there are other non-opioid options.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by IntronExon on Friday February 23, 2018 @09:53AM (#16446598)

Opiates != Anesthesia

Opiates are painkillers, anesthetic are a different beast.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by freedomben on Friday February 23, 2018 @04:47PM (#16449913)

Fentanyl is an extremely common ingredient in a surgical cocktail.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by IntronExon on Friday February 23, 2018 @05:58PM (#16450373)

It is indeed, but as an analegesic, not an anasthetic. Paralytic, analegesic, anesthetic, is the usual trio for general anesthetic surgery. For “twilight sleep” as used in most colonoscopies, it will tend to be fentanyl and Versed.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by ShorsHammer on Friday February 23, 2018 @03:06AM (#16444913)

The main pathway for opioid addiction is surgery. Doctors who prescribed the drugs can also prescribe an end to it too.

Simplistic yes, but such a drug could prevent a lot of harm.

Considering how much the mainstream dialogue is about illicit drugs its probably time to start talking about the far more common addictions and associated problems.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by DanBC on Friday February 23, 2018 @05:04AM (#16445354)

> The main pathway for opioid addiction is surgery

Do you have a source for that please? Other countries who don't have an opioid crisis don't prescribe opioids for long term pain as much, but continue to prescribe opioids for acute pain, including surgery.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by ShorsHammer on Saturday February 24, 2018 @01:27AM (#16452054)

While the US does seem to be leading the pack, it is a common trend in other developed nations especially in older demographics.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/article-abstrac...

> Conclusions and Relevance - New persistent opioid use after surgery is common and is not significantly different between minor and major surgical procedures but rather associated with behavioral and pain disorders.

https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/09/26/1132719/0/...

> Nearly 3 million individuals who had surgery in 2016 became persistent opioid users, continuing to take opioids three to six months after their procedure

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by gwbas1c on Thursday February 22, 2018 @11:47PM (#16444314)

More recent knowledge shows that Tylenol works better for pain management.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by selectodude on Friday February 23, 2018 @12:53AM (#16444532)

You're not cutting somebody open with acetaminophen.

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Re:Vaccines against addictive drugs push forward despite pas... by mattkrause on Friday February 23, 2018 @03:15AM (#16444948)

To be fair, you're not cutting someone open with (only) codine or something like that either.

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