By editor
09 Jan, 2015
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Abby Boxman, abuse, addiction, awareness, deaths, heroin, heroin vaccine, justin boxman, justinthebox.org, Medicine Abuse Project, NJ Heroin addiction, opiate, opiate addiction, Partnership at drugfree.org, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug awareness, prescription drugs
The New Year always brings change for each one of us. One thing that we don’t have control over time moving on. Yet, the things that we do have control over we need to stay focused on to better ourselves and the world around us.
I haven’t posted in a while. I have been busy continuing my education. I have returned to school as a full time student and it has consumed 8 days of week of work. In order for me to make a difference in my advocacy movements, I want to gain as much education as I can. So I apologize for slacking, however will do my best in 2015!!!
Wishing you all a peaceful New Year!! 
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This is great..BUT addiction is as much of a mental addiction. Addiction is both a physical and mental addiction. If the physical dependency can be blocked, the person must still work on the mental. I feel that this is somewhere after detox and within a 30-60 days where they are starting to, very slowly change their habits. so lets say after this “vaccine” they implement recovery to strive for sober living. Every little bit helps.
Vaccine for heroin addiction promising
A vaccine that could help fight heroin addiction shows promise in early tests in rats, researchers report.
drug names
A vaccine that targets heroin and its psychoactive breakdown products in the bloodstream may prevent them from reaching the brain, explain scientists from The Scripps Research Institute in US.
“Heroin-addicted rats deprived of the drug will normally resume using it compulsively if they regain access, but our vaccine stops this from happening,” George Koob, chair of the institute’s addiction research group, said.
Initial tests of the vaccine, reported in 2011, showed that it could block some of the acute effects of heroin, such as reducing pain. The new study involved more rigorous tests of the vaccine.
How the study was done
“We gave the vaccine to rats that had already been exposed to heroin, a situation obviously relevant to a human clinical situation,” study first author Joel Schlosburg, a postdoctoral research associate, said in the news release.
The vaccine did not block the effects of methadone, buprenorphine and other drugs that are commonly used to treat heroin addiction.
“It doesn’t affect the opioid system per se, so in principle you could give this vaccine to heroin-dependent people and continue to treat them with standard therapies, too,” Schlosburg said. “Opioid painkillers such as codeine or oxycodone also would continue to work.”
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
If the vaccine proves effective in human clinical trials, the researchers said, it could become a standard part of therapy for heroin addiction, which affects more than 10 million people worldwide. However, results obtained in animal experiments often aren’t attainable in trials with humans.
More information
The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about heroin.
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