Vaccines: The Future of Drug Addiction Treatment?

According to the CDC, an average of 115 Americans die every day from opioid use. In 2016, the number of deaths attributable to heroin or prescription opioid overdose was five times what it was in 1999. As the opioid epidemic rages on, researchers continue to explore new methods to effectively treat this addiction.

A team of researchers at The Scripps Research Institute recently published their work on the development of a vaccine that could potentially treat heroin addiction, something scientists have been considering since the 1970s. The idea would be to prevent heroin from crossing the blood-brain barrier, which is what causes the sensation of being high. This research is being conducted around the theory that if drug users no longer feel the effects of heroin, post-treatment relapse would become far less likely.

In the meantime, other research teams are also looking into creating similar vaccines that could potentially treat cocaine or nicotine addiction. “The vaccines seem very promising, and they’re novel, providing a different mechanism to prevent substance abuse,” says Kelly E. Dunn, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavior at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “But there’s still a lot of work to do.”

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