NEW SMOKING VACCINE DEVELOPED

Smokers who have tried every way of quitting and still can't kick the habit
could find the answer in a revolutionary anti-smoking vaccine.

The vaccine has been developed by ImmuLogic of Waltham, Mass., which plans
to test it shortly on human volunteers. The company has already begun
testing a cocaine vaccine on volunteers.

This is the first anti-smoking treatment which has attempted to neutralize
the addictive effects of nicotine. The vaccine works by provoking an immune
response with antibodies which bind to and neutralize the nicotine,
preventing it from reaching the body's nicotine receptors and reinforcing
the craving which hooks smokers.

In other words, you could smoke if you wanted to, but since there would be
no ``nicotine hit'' there would be little point in persisting.

The new vaccines could be the forerunners of a new generation of treatments
which would transform the way we deal with drug abuse -- from marijuana to
nicotine.

The key to the new vaccines lies in their distinctive chemical molecules
which are easily identified in the brain by antibodies.

Researchers had hoped to develop an alcohol vaccine, but Barbara Fox of
ImmuLogic said: ``The alcohol molecule is too simple. For a vaccine to
work, you need the antibodies to be specific for that drug, and to be
easily identified. The cocaine molecule is very distinctive.''

The vaccine's development has been welcomed by one of Britain's leading
addiction specialists as ``a major advance which could save as many lives
as the early vaccines against infectious scourges like smallpox.''

Dr. Colin Brewer, director of the Stapleford Center, a British clinic which
treats patients with drug addictions, said: ``Smoking is just like an
infectious disease. It spreads from person to person. Nicotine is nearly
always the first drug people use, the first drug they get addicted to, and
the most addictive of all drugs.''

Brewer said there could be an ethical outcry if governments sought to
immunize children against tobacco since vaccines can have adverse effects.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)