Stay Informed

Sign up for news & alerts

Already signed up?
Login here
What Can I Do?


Get Help
Need alcohol or drug help for yourself or someone else? GET HELP
Resources
Resources
Find useful publications, online documents & more.


DrugScreening.org


 

Smoking Vaccine Gets Study Backing
November 13, 2007

Email
Email
Print
Print
SubscribeSubscribe
News Summary

New research shows that a nicotine vaccine can be effective in helping people quit smoking, the Associated Press reported Nov. 7.

Research presented at a recent American Heart Association conference showed that  15 percent of patients given the vaccine were able to quit smoking for a year, compared to 6 percent of those receiving placebos. That makes the success rate of the vaccine comparable to other smoking-cessation products.

Frank Vocci, director of medication development at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said the NicVAX vaccine, which blocks the nicotine receptors in the brain, "clearly shows promise."

The 301 long-term smokers in the study received five shots each of the vaccine over a six-month period. However, while the vaccine group did better than the placebo group, the dropout rate among the vaccine group was more than twice that of the placebo group.

COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE:

Posted by SmokeCoach on 03 Jun 08 06:02 PM EDT
What does it mean that the drop out rate was higher? What, exactly, did they "drop out" of? If they had already been given the vaccine, they couldn't really drop out. Did they just discontinue participation in the study?

Your Turn! Post a public comment (guidelines):

Name:

Comment:
(limit 200
words)

Enter this word
(help):
Change

GUIDELINES:
Comments are meant for thoughtful public discussion of the article published above. Therefore:

  1. Keep it clean, courteous, focused, and on-topic.

  2. Do not post personal requests for help (see resources).

  3. Proof your comments carefully for spelling and punctuation, and don't use ALL CAPS. Comments are published immediately and cannot be edited.

  4. Deceptive, slanderous and commercially-motivated comments are prohibited.

We reserve the right to remove comments not conforming to these guidelines. (Report a comment).

Have questions or feedback? Contact us.