You Heard It Here First: Giving the Cocaine Vaccine to Toddlers
A group of Queensland Nationals want the Federal Government to investigate
giving an anti-junkie vaccination to children under 12 months old. The vaccination, under development in the UK, would render children immune to becoming smokers or drug users and become part of the national measles, mumps and rubella vaccination program. Tis weekend's Queensland Nationals central council meeting will debate calling for the investigation. Drugs are a scourge," said Nationals member Ken Wilson. "I feel strongly about this and I'm inviting the Federal Government to investigate it and if it proves worthwhile, then do a vaccination program." Britain's Independent reported the jab would block out the euphoria associated with cocaine and heroin, and was due to be marketed within two years in Britain where the Department of Trade and Industry has set up a project to find scientific ways to break drug addictions. Bitish biotech firm Xenova has conducted trials of an anti-cocaine vaccine that showed that 58 per cent of patients remained cocaine-free after three months.
Comments
That's not much of a "vaccine," is it? A good rehab program gets you that figure.
You'd be surprised how much resistance there is on the right to vaccines for measles and polio, much less something with a 42% failure rate in just a three month test. You'd also be surprised how much those folks are listened to at the Legislature -- I was, when the state bioterrorism bill last session (SB 355)eschewed mandatory vaccinations after a bioterrorism event. The bill was specially modified to allow for keeping folks in isolation who refused to be vaccinated, almost entirely because of objections from folks on the religious right.
In addition to the adherents from the Christian home schooler crowd (makes me wince, because I sympathize with their basic faith in the Bible), the actual litigation over vaccine exemptions indicates a wing of support from the earthy-crunchy New Agers (I mean, the outliers of the holistic health movement). The notion that New Agers and Christian Home Schoolers would form a coalition on something is pretty bizarre, considering each of these groups traditionally seemed to view the other as the ultimate enemy or threat.
All very lamentable, in my opinion; I'm a big fan of vaccines and truly believe the resistance movement is misinformed and miguided (and way too empowered by our legal system). They are "shirkers" in a classic collective action problem - everyone knows they don't need to be vaccinated as long as EVERYONE ELSE is, but it doesn't take many people thinking like that to break the herd immunity...
Regarding the 58% - I've been following the trial studies for a few years, and some have had better results than this, I think. The Yale researchers have been elated with the results (as far as I can tell), and they run a regular rehab program already. But also remember that these are people who are already addicts, in outpatient programs there at Yale. I am not saying that universal cocaine vaccination will actually occur, just that I expect more and more people to call for it; I will wait and see what happens politically. The advantage of this vaccine is that so far it appears to have absolutely no side effects, and it really does make it basically impossible to get high from cocaine or crack, or to overdose. The downside - it lasts only three or four months. (That might be long enough, though, to keep college freshmen from getting hooked during that crucial first semester of independence and experimentation).
My prediction is that it will be utilized, besides in rehab programs, mostly in contexts where we already have mandatory periodic drug testing: for parolees, certain welfare recipients, air traffic controllers/airline pilots, and some athletes. I do not believe there would be any constitutional obstacle to mandating it for everyone (the Supreme Court has already held explicitly that the government can force people to get vaccines even over their objections). It will really be a question of politics.