NicVAX

Only 5% of smokers started when they were over 18 years of age.

Five percent.

Teens are encouraged to try smoking through peer pressure, other social pressures and Big Tobacco advertising.  The sad fact is that a high proportion of people who try cigarettes (or chewing tobacco) will become physically addicted to nicotine.  Malcolm X, 1965: "Cigarettes are more difficult to quit than heroin".

We've all heard the numbers, but just in case you need a refresher:

-On average- ignoring the outliers- if you smoke, you can take 22 years off your life.

-50% of cancers are attributable to smoking.

-84% of lung cancer is attributable to smoking.

-30% of heart disease is attributable to smoking.

-80% of bronchitis and emphysema are attributable to smoking.

-75% of oral cancer is attributable to smoking.

And these are all conservative estimates.  While there are a number of toxic substances in tobacco smoke that sound scary even to a non-chemist- hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, nitrosamines, free radicals and oxidizing gases- it's the nicotine that's highly addictive.  It's a gestalt, really- the mythical power of holding fire in your hand, the social advantage of having something cool to do with your hands, and then the actual physical power that nicotine gains over the user.

And nicotine is such a simple molecule:

 

There is now a new strategy for smoking prevention and cessation.  Nabi pharmaceuticals have developed a vaccine against nicotine which is in FDA fast track trial phase. 

From their website:

Nicotine is a small molecule that upon inhalation into the body quickly passes into the bloodstream and subsequently reaches the brain by crossing the blood-brain barrier. Once in the brain, the nicotine binds to specific nicotine receptors, which results in the release of stimulants, such as dopamine, providing the smoker with a positive sensation, which causes addiction. NicVAX is designed to stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies that bind to nicotine in the bloodstream and prevent it from crossing the blood-brain barrier and entering the brain. Therefore, the brain does not produce the positive-sensation stimulants as a response to nicotine. Pre-clinical animal studies with NicVAX have shown that vaccination could prevent nicotine from reaching the brain blocking the effects of nicotine, including effects that can lead to addiction or can reinforce and maintain addiction.

Nicotine addiction is difficult to treat effectively. We believe NicVAX has advantages over existing treatment therapies because its effect is irreversible for potentially six to 12 months following vaccination as antibodies to nicotine continue to be produced by the body?s immune system. This is important due to the extremely high relapse rate that has been observed when a smoker attempts to quit smoking. Currently, smokers being treated for nicotine addiction can stop using their therapy and resume their addiction.

http://www.nabi.com/

This drug may turn out to be highly effective in helping smokers quit the habit.  NicVAX also has potential to reduce the catastrophe of teens who first try smoking to satisfy some fleeting need of the moment and end up getting brutally tricked by Big Tobacco into an addiction that's almost impossible to break.

 

 

Here is Nabi's informational pdf:

http://www.nabi.com/images/factsheets/fsNicVAX.pdf

And the Wikipedia article is updated periodically regarding approval status:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NicVAX

Comments

[Tom Bentley]

Rick, I started smoking cigars when I was 15, because I thought they were "classy." But they were only simulacrums of cigars, since they were flavored Tiparillos (blueberry cigars, my oh my!) with only a percentage of tobacco content. I did graduate to the real thing in my later teens, and later on, to serious stogies of girth and dimension (and which would occasionally put me in the outer dimensions).

Of course, cigar smokers are subject to mouth/throat cancers (as well as subject to smelling of the random alleyway on occasion), but in sharply reduced numbers, since cigars aren't inhaled. Their addictive mechanism is much more subtle. The world of the cigar smoker is much more contemplative than the cigarette tokers, who is more often moved to relieve the nag of the nicotine than reflect on world tidings.

I still smoke the occasional stogie, sometimes one a week, sometimes one a month, sometimes with a cup of strong joe, or some other lubricant, but always with a nice book at hand. Nasty habit, to be sure, but not without its charms...

[Carolin Newmeyer]

According to recent trials, NicVAX has failed on the second phase of phase III trials and is still under development. So until a vaccine has finally passed for production, we should still rely on awareness, education and tobacco control among youth.