Once you are hooked on drugs, it will take a time to recover. Withdrawal symptoms and a sense of euphoria will always be at hand for those who have been victims of drug addiction and wanting to change. But, with the introduction of a cocaine vaccine, all the pains and burdens of a recovering patient will soon be over.
Recently, a couple, who are both doctors, presented their innovative cocaine vaccine, believed to be the first in the market that will ease the treatments for drug addicts. Baylor College of Medicine researchers Dr. Tom Kosten, a psychiatry professor and his wife Therese, a psychologist and neuroscientist in Houston joined forces in developing a remedy for cocaine addiction. Dr. Kosten believes, with the help of their discovery, people eager to stop taking cocaine will be effectively helped.
As the vaccine is injected to the patients, the victims will no longer feel the special ‘highness’ and the satisfaction that they used to experience should they be tempted to take prohibited drugs again. Most of them will surely refrain from taking in cocaine as they will be losing interest in it. Based on initial clinical studies, the vaccine attacks the immune system. This results in the inability of the body system to recognize the cocaine or other variants taken in, responsible in stimulating brain activity and generating a sense of highness among drug addicts.
The vaccine, according to the researchers, inactivates the molecules of cocaine and prevents them from getting into the brain. As this happens, the drug-taker will not experience euphoria or a special feeling of highness. This is a great discovery, since most scientists for the past decades were analyzing how to block the pathways of the drugs like going to the brain so as to avoid damage. But with the new vaccine, it is a solution to that long problem.
The vaccine has already been submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for trial. It will be tested in spring. If this works effectively, the new vaccine will be helpful in rehabilitating drug patients’ conditions. But, critics are up with arms rebuffing the vaccine’s effectiveness in some patients.
