Anti-smoking vaccine in the pipeline
Updated 1:04 pm, Thursday, November 17, 2011
It took Tom Heger many attempts before he was finally able to quit smoking after 20 years wedded to the habit. He was finally able to break free of his addiction this year, with the aid of medication, but it was a hard road that made Heger, 42, of Norwalk, wish there was a simpler solution.
For instance, what if there was a vaccine that could cure you of your addiction to nicotine?
"That would make it easy," Heger said. "It would take all the hard work out of quitting."
Unfortunately, there's no such vaccine yet, but Peter Burkhard, an associate professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of Connecticut is part of a team looking to create one. Earlier this year, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, gave a five-year, $2.5 million grant to Burkhard to develop and test the vaccine. He will work with a doctor in Switzerland on the project.
The vaccine would work on a principle similar to an inoculation against a disease, introducing a virus-like particle with nicotine molecules attached to it into the body. Because the molecule would look like a virus, immune cells would generate antibodies to target nicotine. Presumably, these antibodies would prevent nicotine molecules from reaching the brain and creating the addictive "buzz" that keeps so many smokers hooked.
With smoking causing about 443,000 premature deaths a year, Burkhard said something needs to be done to help people conquer their addictions. "Smoking absolutely has huge health costs associated with it," he said. "If we came up with something that reduces that toll, it would be just great."
Obviously, getting smokers to quit has been a goal of public health advocates for decades. Thursday is the Great American Smokeout, the American Cancer Society-sponsored event that aims to get smokers to ditch their habits. The society estimates tobacco use accounts for at least 30 percent all cancer deaths and 87 percent of lung cancer deaths.
In 2011, there will be an estimated total of 221,130 new cases of lung cancer in the United States, and 2,680 in Connecticut. Nationwide, there will be about 156,940 lung cancer deaths this year. In Connecticut alone, 1,750 are expected to die from the disease.
With the cost of smoking so high, many health experts applaud any effort to create something that will help people quit. However, some are skeptical that a vaccine is in the near future. And even if it were to exist, many experts doubt that an inoculation alone could get smokers to toss their butts aside.
Burkhard's project is hardly the first attempt at developing a nicotine vaccine. In July, the company Nabi Biopharmaceuticals announced that its anti-smoking vaccine, NicVAX had failed in a second late-stage clinical trial.
Meanwhile, Burkhard said clinical trials on the vaccine are still a way off and, even if everything goes smoothly, it could be at least 10 years before the vaccine is available to the public.
"This is not something that's just around the corner," he said.
Even if someone does develop a successful vaccine, health professionals said it likely wouldn't be a "magic bullet" that could single-handedly break smokers of their deep-seated addiction. For one thing, nicotine dependence is just a piece of what makes smoking addiction, said Stuart Zarich, chief of cardiology at Bridgeport Hospital.
"We generally find that even things like nicotine patches don't work unless they're paired with some kind of behavior modification," he said.
Gretchen May-Fendo, Bridgeport Hospital's outpatient pulmonary rehabilitation coordinator, agreed. She said people are often as hooked on the ritual of smoking as they are on the chemical content of their cigarettes. May-Fendo estimates that the typical smoker executes the hand-to-mouth motion associated with smoking about 200 times a day. When they stop smoking, they're as likely to miss that motion as they are the nicotine. Emotional triggers can also be a factor, she said.
"Lots of people say they can't quit smoking because of stress," May-Fendo said. "So we have to teach people other ways to manage their stress."
But given what a serious health risk smoking is, at least one area doctor said the idea of a vaccine isn't unwelcome. Like Zarich and May-Fendo, Benjamin Toll director of the smoking cessation program at Yale-New Haven Hospital's Smilow Cancer Hospital, thinks behavior modification is an important part of getting people to quit.
But Toll pointed out that certain medications -- such as the drug Zyban, which also functions as an anti-depressant -- can play a role in getting people to quit. Thus he believes there's a place for an anti-smoking vaccine.
"We definitely need more medication for smoking cessation," Toll said. "I don't think the idea of a vaccine is dead. I think it should be pursued."
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