A vaccine against smoking is in pipeline

Article : A vaccine against smoking is in pipeline
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i would try it in a heartbeat, i've tried everything else. i wish someone would come up with something that works - it's a stupid,nasty,stinking,expensive habit

I have tried everything I could except the vaccine, Lazer and Hypnosis

Where can I participate in the study? I am a 49 year old white female, who has tried everything to quit smoking, with no results. I have no health problems. Please help.

Here's a novel idea...just make cigarettes illegal. Don't continue to make smokers into pariahs. Offer them something that really works. If the sale, purchase, and use of tobacco products was illegal, I think most people would find ways to quit rather than find ways to use illegally. I know, the resulting impact on the economy would be monumental. Imagine the tobacco farmers and workers with no jobs, oncologists and pharmaceutical companies with less illness to treat, so called "stop smoking" item purveyors...all would either be out of work or would have less market for their "products". So, I know this choice won't be made. Here in the US, we always seem to choose the dollar over all else. BTW, I am a smoker who would (and has) tried just about everything to quit. I'd be willing to participate in the study of the new vaccine.

I would like to try the smoking vaccine on a trail bases and for your study. I have tried everything else and nithing has worked and I need to quit. I am a 43 white man. My father just passed away last year from a tumor in his lung and a sister tumor in his head, and he had quit smoking about 9 or 10 years before that. Please let me know if I could be involed in the study. Thank-you, Kevin Schafbuch

Buried deep with the Cytos press release is the following comment, "[a]n intent-to-treat analysis of the entire study population has not achieved statistical significance; therefore, the sub-group analysis based on antibody levels was performed." That's right, those using the vaccine did not quit at higher rates than those receiving placebo injections. So Cytos decided to play with the numbers. http://www.smokersvaccine.com/doc/Orlando_%20PR_E.pdf

Before announcing this victory, Cytos discarded performance results associated with 102 participants, 45 for using replacement nicotine, NRT, the patch, gum or lozenge (the exact same nicotine that the vaccine was supposed to prevent from crossing the blood-brain barrier) and 57 for what it calls "incomplete antibody data." That's 30% of the entire study population.

If waiting on a magic cure, this one won't hit the street for at least another five years and even then the vaccine's effectiveness is reduced by half every 50 days after 4 injections. As per the article, smoking ten cigarettes per day does not make someone a "heavy smoker."

We should be concerned about relapsed vaccine users more nicotine (including NRT) in order to overcome the vaccine and achieve their old level of nicotine induced dopamine output. The Cytos site provides graphs showing that in studies of rats receiving the vaccine that 43% of nicotine still crossed the blood-brain barrier. While the press release tells us that cigarette consumption in the "high antibody response group" was half that of the placebo group, it does not mention consumption by the lower groups, where we'd naturally expect to see a problem. Nor do "averages" within groups tell us nicotine intake amounts of any individual. Such risks should never be averaged nor counted by cigarettes.

Another concern with this study is that the vaccine was not allowed to stand on its own two feet. Instead, Cytos felt compelled to throw in an intervention that we know produces positive cessation results - three months of counseling. But how many within the placebo group stuck around after they quickly found themselves still smoking the exact same amount, in order to take advantage of counseling?

Combining "the latest cure" with proven interventions such as cessation education, counseling or support tell us very little about the intervention's effectiveness. We saw figures like this when NRT was hiding behind behavioral protocols only to watch its effectiveness drop to just 7% at six months when used as a stand alone over-the-counter aid.

We probably don't need to be concerned about 70% of vaccine users reporting flu like symptoms for roughly 24 hours but need to know far more about the vaccine's impact upon post-relapse smoking rates. Does it impact tolerance? It's shocking that these researchers are not checking and sharing blood-serum nicotine level data but instead relying upon expired carbon monoxide. Imagine a vaccine designed to keep nicotine from getting into the brain and then ignoring bloodstream concentrations. If levels were double the smoker's baseline, and additional cigarettes were found to be the cause, news of such a potentially destructive cure might cause Cytos stocks to tumble.

I'm writing in response to Mr. Rourke's earlier comment. I find his to be a cold and myopic approach to this problem, and unfortunately very common in American culture. Taken too far, individualism corrupts our ability to meet our duties to our fellow citizens. Even in the coldest utilitarian view, compassion is part and parcel of an effective social contract.

Smoking is an unwise choice, certainly, but there are millions of smokers who want to quit and are paralized by their addiction. There are those who reject the very existence of addiction, instead attributing it to lack of will or weakness of character. Those people are wrong. Addiction is real, and it's behind the billions of dollars we spend each year to help smokers battle their resulting diseases. If medications like this can help jolt people out of their addiction to cigarettes, we should all foot the bill. It's ultimately for the betterment of our society. OUR society; mine, Mr. Rourke's, and the millions we may never meet but with whose futures our own entwine.

Could this same technology be used to create a vaccine to trigger immune respone to remove environmental toxins from the body? Might be useful for those exposed in accidents like Seveso, or the president of Ukraine for that matter...

Realizing that response to metals might be a different issue, might it nevertheless be feasible to engineer this type of vaccine into a treatment for lead or mercury poisoning?

Its about time to put an end to smoking and the time, energy, productivity, etc that are lost; every life’s it leaves behind along with the pure waste it creates.

Not long ago smoking was deeply engrained into culture as being cool as history recounts. My only hope is to see cigarettes in the history books and off the market.

I think that tests for side-effects are necessary, however the tests on whether it works or not, do not have to be extensive. I think that anything that MAY help one quit such a bad habbit should be made public as soon as possible. I know that I would definately recommend this vaccine to my parents, and would insist that they try it. I hope it becomes available here in Canada, soon!

Why must the government help people with their lack of discipline? Smoking is not a disease. You don't just one day wake up and see a cigarette hanging out of your mouth. It is the product of a bad choice to begin with and a series of easier/bad choices after that. If someone doesn't want to be one of the 5 million people that die each year, they shouldn't smoke. If they are a non-smoker who doesn't want to pay obscene healthcare costs just because of other people's bad choices, they should vote to make cigarettes illegal, or impose a 1,000% tax on them that would go towards healthcare.

I'd take it!!! Sure wish it was here today!

Welcome article

I think the United States should offer stop smoking aids to smokers or at least let the tobacco companies pay for it.

This sounds promissing.

Ken

It's about time the medical science community did something to help cure tobacco addiction after years of research into the effects of secondhand smoke that has fueled the witchhunt and punitive policies against addicted smokers.

Is this the Swiss company which originally created the Nicotine GUM, which was produced in the USA by Marion Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals in the 90's? If so, they are top notch r&d firm.

Can they also test the Vaccine in combination w/ the nicotine gum to see if increases success rate?

Sure hope it works, lives depend on better quitting aids for smokers. Pray for Peter Jennings of ABC World News show, who is battling Lung Cancer. Go to: www.tobaccofreekids.org
Buy & wear the Red wristband (like cyclist Armstrong's, but for fight against tobacco diseases)!

The human cost of 5 million people dying each year, and the cost of medicare and medicaid to the taxpayers, this vaccine should become a priority item and the USA should offer grants to USA companies to fund the research. Including a 5 million dollar bonus for completing the research within the next two years. The money and lives we would save as a nation are a great investment. Imagine the children not breathing second hand smoke, asthma, and premature infants. There would be less deaths but also millions of dollars saved in secondary illness and other medical treatment costs. The vaccine should be manufactured in the USA as well as many other vaccines that we are too dependant on foreign countries to produce.