The idea of it sounds very simple and easy – one jab and that’s it – no more addiction, it won’t stop your cravings though, just the effects of nicotine.
Nicotine addiction is something every vaper has to a greater or lesser degree, and something that when smoking cigarettes was an addiction most were uncomfortable with. With vaping this may be a different story, but lets assume for the sake of this post that nicotine addiction is something you want to get rid off.
A recent post on a forum (link at the bottom) mentions a new vaccine that would make your body produce antibodies to nicotine, and the idea (it’s still experimental) is that as soon as you get any nicotine in your body – these antibodies come along like pac man, eats up the nicotine before it gets to your brain and you experience all those associative feelings that you do when you smoke or vape.
But what is different about this proposed vaccine is the way it is designed to work within the human body.
We all know about vaccines that prevent illness – like the measles jab, or the BCG to prevent TB – that works by injecting you with a tiny amount of the actual disease, which tickles your immune system to make antibodies, which it then stores in its arsenal, should you come into contact proper with said disease.
Then there are vaccines that are used for cancer, where ready-made antibodies are injected into you – and they have a specific target -the cancer – which they do their best to eat up.
But this new vaccine opens up a third way – and it all sounds very complicated and scary. The researchers are taking genetically engineered antibodies, putting them into a genetically engineered virus – (that is supposed to not be harmful,) which they inject into mice, where the genetically engineered vaccine then inserts itself into some liver cells, that then begin to produce nicotine antibodies when ever they detect nicotine. So they alter the liver cells to produce antibodies – as well as expecting the liver cells to continue to function within their usual role.
Now, this post isn’t long enough to go into all the details, I have not read the research, and as I have said – the link is at the bottom, but what really grabbed my attention was the thought that has gone into this vaccine should it progress through the mice, to the rats, up to primates and then hit the human stage – is the alleged quote by one of the researchers – a Dr Crystal, “ what might be possible, given the complete safety of the vaccine, is to use it to pre-empt nicotine addiction in individuals that have never smoked.”
This vaccine has not been considered safe yet – it is still being tested on mice – so why even think about using it on people that don’t need it?? - (Rhetorical question there, we know the answer – it’s about the money.)
I encourage you to read the post, there are lots of educated folk chipping in, making excellent points, but this new vaccine did make my blood run cold.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/media-general-news/309584-new-vaccine-nicotine-addiction.html
