Cocaine Vaccine Not Quite Up To Snuff: Scientists

A new vaccine aimed at warding off addiction to cocaine is not quite up to snuff, according to researchers at the medicine schools at Yale and Baylor universities.

 WACO, Texas – A new vaccine aimed at warding off addiction to cocaine is not quite up to snuff, according to researchers at the medicine schools at Yale and Baylor universities.

A six-month trial revealed that just 38 percent of those vaccinated produced enough anti-cocaine antibodies to inactivate the cocaine in the blood stream.

The successful vaccination subjects sustained the antibodies for just two months.

As a result, repeated booster vaccinations would be required, the authors of the trial indicated in the October issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The Yale/Baylor trial had been going on for five years; the lead researcher Thomas Kosten has been on the trail for such a vaccine for 15 years.

The United States has no approved pharmacological therapy for cocain abuse; the only treatment consists of 12-step programs.

There are almost two million regular cocaine users in the United States, the world’s number one market for the drug.