In tests on rats, NicVAX stopped only about two-thirds of the nicotine placed in their bloodstream from reaching the brain which raises the possibility that people treated with nicotine binders, rather than being "cured," could end up smoking more to get the dose to which they're accustomed. In any case, smokers can already obtain products gum, patches, and inhalers that deliver nicotine without any smoke at all. That the availability of these alternatives has not led to a wholesale abandonment of cigarettes suggests another drawback to nicotine binders: Evidently, there is more to the appeal of smoking than nicotine. Former smokers know that changing the personalized rituals associated with lighting up can be the hardest part of quitting.
More troubling is the likelihood that similar vaccines developed for illegal drugs dubbed "neurocops" by the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics could be forced on people, such as drug offenders required to choose between "treatment" and jail, in the context of the war on drugs (in which NIDA is a key participant). But in order for the drug warriors to succeed in taking the battle to our bloodstreams, they would have to go beyond "curing" the small fraction of drug offenders who happen to get arrested each year.
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Enter NIDA's "prevention" agenda: removing the potential for addiction to drugs in people who have not yet tried them. And just as antismoking activists for years have been comparing tobacco to crack and heroin, the hopes of "vaccine" promoters move easily from nicotine to illegal drugs. A BBC News story about U.K.-based Xenova's nicotine binder, "which may also help cocaine addicts," explains that "it could also be given to young children to prevent them from taking up these habits." Indeed, in late July, members of the British Parliament revealed that they were considering exactly that kind of scheme as part of a nationwide antidrug immunization proposal from their Brain Science, Addiction, and Drugs committee.
Tobacco foes such as David Kessler, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, have prepared the way for this sort of solution by characterizing smoking as a "pediatric disease," along with mumps, measles, and rubella. Parents accustomed to viewing little boys' boisterousness and distractibility as a medical problem to be treated with drugs should have little difficulty accepting the idea that a battery of vaccines can protect their children from destructive relationships with psychoactive substances.
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