[NVIC] Lifestyle Vaccines: Mandated or Voluntary?

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National Vaccine Information Center Newsletter

e-NEWS

September 18, 2006

" Whether this new era of vaccine research can subdue many of the poor

lifestyle choices that are today's biggest threats to health — causing

obesity, cancer, heart disease and other problems — has yet to be proved.

But the evidence is promising enough to persuade the federal government to

put millions of dollars toward finding out if two of the vaccines can end

nicotine and cocaine addiction. "

" What if parents want their children to be inoculated in order to prevent

them from getting fat or starting to smoke? Should vaccination be forced on

pregnant addicts to protect the developing fetus? Should judges make use of

a cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine vaccine a condition for more lenient

sentences for convicted drug addicts? " - Kotulak, Chicago Tribune

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

Forced vaccination is about to take on a whole new meaning if M.D./Ph.D.

entrepreneur vaccinologists and government health officials get their way.

It all started in 1991 when the CDC encouraged hepatitis B vaccine mandates

for all infants and children to prevent an adult disease most prevalent in

IV drug users and those with multiple sexual partners. For the greater good

of society, they said, all babies must be injected with three doses of

hepatitis B vaccine (at a cost of $180) in case they grow up to be drug

addicts or prostitutes, endangering the welfare of society.

And, although NVIC protested and pointed out lack of adequate safety

testing, most Americans bowed their heads and said nothing.

Earlier this year, the CDC encouraged HPV vaccine mandates for 9 to 11 year

old girls to prevent a sexually transmitted HPV infection that, in rare

cases, becomes persistent and causes cervical cancer when women don't get

annual pap smears. For the greater good of society, they said, all pre-

adolescent girls must get three doses of HPV vaccine (at a cost of $360) in

case they case they have sex with an infected partner and don't get pap

smears, endangering the welfare of society.

And, although NVIC protested and pointed out lack of adequate safety

testing (see

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p%3A%2F%2Fwww.nvic.org%2F>www.nvic.org) most Americans are bowing their

heads and saying nothing.

Now the social engineering vaccinologists, once again waving the " greater

good " club over our heads, are using taxpayer money to create nicotine,

cocaine and anti-fat vaccines that can be forced on all children - just in

case the little ones grow up to be smokers or drug addicts or overweight,

endangering the welfare of society.

What kinds of vaccines will the entrepreneuring vaccinologists want to

force on children next? Just about anything they and the drug companies

cook up that gives them a blank check to justify making the world not only

infection free, but also choice free. That way, they won't have to explain

why everybody is so sick.

New breed of vaccines raises new ethical questions

Chicago Tribune

October 1, 2006 By Kotulak

Tribune science reporter

Though people who want to lose weight or break their addiction to

cigarettes or drugs may welcome the new breed of vaccines, the breakthrough

also raises ethical questions.

What if parents want their children to be inoculated in order to prevent

them from getting fat or starting to smoke?

Should vaccination be forced on pregnant addicts to protect the developing

fetus? Should judges make use of a cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine

vaccine a condition for more lenient sentences for convicted drug addicts?

Would the obesity vaccine become the latest diet drug, used over and over

by people wanting to lose a few pounds?

" I can envision a well-meaning parent who drives her 13-year-old to the

pediatrician's office and says inoculate him against nicotine and cocaine, "

said Hartel, director of the National Academy of Sciences' Center

for Studies of Behavior and Development.

" And since we don't know the long-term effects of repeated injections of a

vaccine, that would be a big problem. I don't think the FDA would approve

these vaccines for that kind of use. "

In a 2004 report, the academy lauded the development of anti-addiction

vaccines but cautioned that " enthusiasm for the new medications should not

obscure the fact that fully informed and voluntary consent is necessary

under any and all circumstances. "

The pressure to vaccinate children against addictions, just as they are now

vaccinated against measles and other infections, is expected to increase if

the vaccines prove to be safe and get better at providing protection, said

Laurie Zoloft, director of the center for bioethics, science and society at

the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

But addiction, she added, is coming to be understood more as a disease than

a vice, and those vaccines could be an appropriate way to fight it.

" The reality is we have these addiction problems and they're not going

away, " said neuroscientist Margaret Haney of Columbia University Medical

School.

In a preliminary study, Haney found that an experimental cocaine vaccine

developed by the United Kingdom's Celtic Pharma reduced the euphoric effect

of crack cocaine by 70 percent in heavy users.

In addition, she said, " there's no evidence that they switched to any other

drug of abuse. They didn't drink more alcohol and they didn't use more

marijuana. "

The addicts, who had been spending $200 to $300 a week on cocaine, reduced

their drug purchases by 75 percent.

" To have this vaccine as an option other than telling people to `just say

no' has potentially huge public health consequences, " Haney said.

no' has potentially huge public health consequences, " Haney said.

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Need to quit a bad habit? There could soon be a vaccine to help

Seattle Times

October 1, 2006

By Kotulak

CHICAGO — Vaccines, the most potent medical weapon devised to vanquish

deadly germs, are being called on to do something different and culturally

revolutionary: inoculate people against bad habits such as overeating,

cigarette smoking and drug use.

Whether this new era of vaccine research can subdue many of the poor

lifestyle choices that are today's biggest threats to health — causing

obesity, cancer, heart disease and other problems — has yet to be proved.

But the evidence is promising enough to persuade the federal government to

put millions of dollars toward finding out if two of the vaccines can end

nicotine and cocaine addiction.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has spent $15 million on

clinical trials for the vaccines and plans to spend more, predicts that one

of the nicotine vaccines may be available for marketing in three years.

" The American Cancer Society has projected that we will have 1 billion

people die from smoking in the world in this century, " said Vocci,

director of medications development for the institute. " If you had a

vaccine that helped people quit and stay quit, or prevent them from

smoking, that's where you'd get the greatest public-health benefit. "

Meanwhile, results from a major obesity-vaccine trial in Switzerland are

expected this year. The vaccine could be ready for use in a few years.

To tamp out deleterious behavior, the new vaccines employ the body's immune

system in an innovative way. Instead of building antibodies to destroy

germs as traditional vaccines do, they construct antibodies that lock onto

nicotine and cocaine molecules, preventing them from reaching the brain.

" What we're seeing is a renaissance in vaccine technology, " said Dr.

Nabel, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious

Diseases' Vaccine Research Center. " It's only natural that when you have a

technology that's this powerful it can be applied to other medical problems. "

Normally, nicotine and cocaine molecules are too small to be seen by the

immune system. So to make the vaccines, scientists attach these molecules

to big target proteins, such as harmless viruses or bacteria, which the

immune system can recognize and attack with specialized antibodies.

When the person later smokes a cigarette or takes cocaine, the antibodies

wrap up and neutralize the molecules before they can trigger feelings of

euphoria and pleasure in the brain. Smokers and cocaine users given the

vaccines say their pleasure is diminished or they no longer get as high,

which decreases the desire for the drug.

In the case of the obesity vaccine, antibodies attach to the hunger

hormone, ghrelin, preventing it from reaching the brain and stimulating

appetite.

Ghrelin, which is secreted by the empty stomach, travels in the bloodstream

to the brain, where it tells a person to eat. But the hormone, discovered

in 1999, also has other important roles, such as signaling the body to

become less active and to store food as fat instead of using it for energy

production.

The reason it can be so hard to lose weight, researchers think, is that

dieting causes large amounts of ghrelin to be produced as the body seeks to

stimulate eating, slow the metabolism of fat and promote fat retention.

Ghrelin also may help explain the yo-yo experience of millions who try to

lose weight but end up gaining it.

" What happens after many attempts at dieting is that you lose weight but as

soon as you stop dieting and go back on normal feeding your ghrelin levels

rise again and that makes you have a lot of hunger, " said immunologist

Claudine Blaser, of the Swiss company Cytos, whose obesity vaccine is

undergoing clinical trials in 100 people.

In experiments with mice, those who were given the vaccine reduced their

weight gain by 15 percent to 20 percent even though they ate as much as

other mice that became obese. Researchers also found they burned off more fat.

Cytos is also in advanced stages of testing a nicotine vaccine. Earlier

studies showed that 42 percent of smokers receiving the vaccine remained

abstinent after a year, compared with 21 percent who got a placebo shot.

" What we can do with our vaccine approach is to basically help these people

get off their bad habits and get off their risks of developing severe

chronic diseases later on, " Blaser said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently put another nicotine

vaccine, NicVAX, on a fast-track status so it can be rushed to market if

shown to be safe and effective. Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, in Boca Raton,

Fla., is expanding trials of NicVAX after an earlier study showed 40

percent of the people getting the vaccine were smoke-free after six months,

compared with 9 percent receiving a placebo.

To many researchers the vaccines seem to be a potential answer to many of

society's major ills; in the United States, there are 50 million cigarette

smokers, 5 million drug addicts, 60 million obese adults and 9 million

overweight young people between 6 and 19.

Most have one thing in common: They'd like to quit but can't. Nearly seven

of 10 smokers, for instance, say they want to stop, but 80 to 90 percent of

those who try to quit resume smoking within a year. The relapse problem is

even worse for cocaine addicts.

" There is a great deal of promise for the nicotine vaccine not only as a

smoking-cessation tool but also potentially as a relapse-prevention tool, "

said Dorothy Hatsukami, director of the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use

Research Center at the University of Minnesota Cancer Center.

" For those who have achieved abstinence and don't want to slip into

relapse, being injected by the vaccine might be a good tool, " said

Hatsukami, whose preliminary data showed that in a small group of smokers

the nicotine vaccine enabled 38 percent to remain abstinent for 30 days

compared with 9 percent on a placebo.

The goal is getting people to give up cigarettes for a year. " If you can

get someone past 12 months with being smoke-free, there's a 70 to 75

percent chance that that person will remain smoke-free, " said Nabi official

Rathjen.

Unlike most older vaccines, which tend to confer permanent immunity, the

new breed of vaccines is reversible, providing immunity against nicotine,

cocaine or ghrelin for one to three months before booster shots are needed.

So far, none of the lifestyle vaccines has produced side effects other than

some flulike symptoms and soreness at the injection site.

" These vaccines are not going to be a panacea for treating everything, "

said Kim Janda, of the Scripps Research Institute, a pioneer in developing

vaccines for addiction and obesity.

" I believe they can be helpful. When people are undergoing abstinence for

drugs of abuse and they have weak moments, if you have a vaccine in place

it can assist them so they don't spiral down to ground zero. "

it can assist them so they don't spiral down to ground zero. "

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Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Nevada City CA & Wales UK

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