Anti-cocaine vaccine passes first hurdle

Most of the 900,000 cocaine abusers who seek treatment for their addiction each year in the United States eventually find their need for the drug irresistible and begin to use it again. An experimental vaccine designed to suppress the high that users get from taking cocaine may one day prove a tool for reducing that relapse rate. A Yale clinical study of the vaccine, TA-CD, found that it produced cocaine antibodies that could potentially keep the drug from reaching the brain and inhibit its effect.

Thomas R. Kosten, M.D., HS ’81, professor of psychiatry and chief of psychiatry of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, and his team administered the vaccine to 34 cocaine abusers who had three- to 10-year cocaine habits and were living in a residential treatment facility. Supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the study showed that TA-CD generated drug-specific antibodies, which bind to cocaine and may prevent it from traveling through the bloodstream to the brain, neutralizing its psychoactive effect. The vaccine’s effectiveness in producing cocaine antibodies persisted throughout the trial.

“The vaccine is very safe, and we did not observe any major side effects,” said Kosten. “TA-CD offers the potential for a completely new and highly viable approach to a very serious problem for which there are no alternative medication therapies available. But we just don’t know yet about its benefits for preventing cocaine relapse.”