Reminder: this subreddit is meant to be a place free of excessive cynicism, negativity and bitterness. Toxic attitudes are not welcome here.

All Negative comments will be removed and will possibly result in a ban.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[removed]

[removed]

oh yeah, lets not endeavour towards any more medical innovations at all because they'll probably be used improperly /s

[deleted]

[removed]

Every new scientific and technological advance comes with risk. Pretty much everything in life comes with risk. But that's no reason to give up on seeking solutions to the challenges we face.

Medicine is moving in the direction of things like bioengineering. It's not going away. Same with our fears over AI and nuclear energy; We need to set aside our fears and develop safeguards so we can implement these technologies responsibly. Burying our heads in the sand leaves the task to less cautious people who aren't going to burden themselves with responsible research.

And on top of all that, we've spent decades leaving these problems to the cops. Look how well that's worked out. Maybe it's time to put down the guns and consider scientific solutions. We lost the "War On Drugs" because it's not a problem that makes sense using a metaphor of combat. But it is almost certainly a problem that makes sense when considered as a matter of health and well-being. Which is why we've begun to use terms like "addiction epidemic", etc.

I mean... What do you think would go wrong?

[deleted]

I read that as a Vaccine Against February…

Some people really hate Valentine's Day.

With my seasonal depression, I'd get that vax

This is not uplifting, it’s a ridiculously misguided attempt at treating a symptom instead of holding the actual drug manufacturers accountable for the untold damages they continue to cause.

Are those two approaches toward addressing this issue mutually exclusive? And are either one plausibly regarded as a silver bullet solution?

Or is this a complex problem that's going to require multiple remedies working in conjunction to address all contributing factors?

How dare you try to make sense on Reddit! Shame! Shame on you! Be gone from me!

I think they meant that the people who really need this treatment are probably the same people who typically dig their heels in over getting vaccinations.

[removed]

How do you propose we do that?

Pretty sure most illicit fent is made by criminals. We’ve been trying to hold them accountable for 40 years. Those sly criminals keep getting away.

[deleted]

[removed]

It's all a result of the war on drugs and of course pharmaceutical companies like Purdue that profit off of addiction. Once the feds started cracking down on opioid prescriptions fentanyl became a cheap alternative. Manufactured in clandestine labs in China, far easier to traffic than heroin. The feds need to step back and the focus needs to be on harm reduction, access to treatment, and education.

[removed]

It's not a vaccine ffs.

I’m completely baffled by this statement. Where on Earth did you get the idea that the majority or even a statistically significant number of people suffering fentanyl overdoses are anti-vaxxers?

Because there’s a ton of opioid abuse and overdosing in rural areas and particularly in the South. I’m thinking of West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana.

And don’t get too worked up. I was just floating a second potential interpretation of the earlier comment.

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

How is this a vaccine?

Are you serious? Criminals are adding Fentanyl to other drugs to make them much more addictive, guaranteeing there are enough desperate addicts to make them very rich. Right now they add just a speck of Fentanyl (which of course is plenty deadly.)

But if drug dealers no longer have to worry about accidentally KILLING THEIR OWN CUSTOMERS - thus killing their own long-term profits - they'll be free to add MORE FENTANYL TO MORE PRODUCTS. All they care about is 💰💰💰💰💰.

Exactly!

As someone who very much dislikes opioids (qualitatively), but might like to partake in a nonzero amount of other recreational substances, not worrying about inadvertently nodding off and dying would be nice.

Obviously this is gross oversimplification, and there are tons of precautions one can take against accidentally ingesting anything laced with fentanyl, but I have no use for opioids; I would gladly pay some pharmaceutical company hundreds of dollars to permanently remove any recreational/therapeutic potential from opioids in exchange for immunity from incidental opioid overdose. Is it possible that I would regret that decision later if I got into a really nasty car accident, for example? Yes, and I'm willing to live with that, and I don't even have tattoos.

I see this as a win, even if it isn't pulling addicts up out of the gutters and fixing their problems.

I hear there's a vaccine for that.

But how will police rationalize their panic attacks?

[deleted]

Sounds like you didn't even read the article.

Great news for not just addicts but also first responders and police.

That ship has sailed. We still have this problem. It transcends class and race. Fentanyl is a menace.

Dude, valentines day, then my birthday, on top of the lack of sun light, the being trapped inside by the cold.... fuck February

The main drug manufacturers are Chinese and they distribute through cartels. To fight that would require a war with china so the next best thing is to try to keep people from dying.

That's not how fentanyl works.

Not only is that absolute fucking nonsense, it's not really all that uplifting either.

You can't vaccinate against something that isn't a disease.

Honestly blaming the drug manufacturers is also treating the symptom instead of the cause.

People turn to drugs to relieve pain. These people will still be in pain whether the fentanyl exists or not. You're not solving their problem by taking away their medicine.

And frankly there's also the issue that fentanyl is a spooky boogeyman that cops can have seizures over just by looking at and die from touching, so everyone treats it as if it exists only for killing people.

I inject people with fentanyl quite a bit. Several times per week.

It's a great medicine for use by paramedics.

It's explained in the article:

>The immunized animals could produce anti-fentanyl antibodies that stop the drug’s effects, allowing it to exit out of the body via the kidneys. This blocks the “high” caused by fentanyl, and it would theoretically make it easier for people to quit using the drug or avoid a relapse.

The study: An Immunconjugate Vaccine Alters Distribution and Reduces the Antinociceptive, Behavioral and Physiological Effects of Fentanyl in Male and Female Rats

The Wikipedia on conjugate vaccines.

In short, it causes immunity to fentanyl (i.e. immunization). Ergo, it's a vaccine.

Conjugate vaccine

>A conjugate vaccine is a type of subunit vaccine which combines a weak antigen with a strong antigen as a carrier so that the immune system has a stronger response to the weak antigen. Vaccines are used to prevent diseases by invoking an immune response to an antigen, part of a bacterium or virus that the immune system recognizes. This is usually accomplished with an attenuated or dead version of a pathogenic bacterium or virus in the vaccine, so that the immune system can recognize the antigen later in life. Most vaccines contain a single antigen that the body will recognize.

^([ )^(F.A.Q)^( | )^(Opt Out)^( | )^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)^( | )^(GitHub)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)

>try to keep people from dying

This is even better than an antidote; It's being referred to as a vaccine because it actually stimulates immunity to fentanyl. That means there'd be no point in taking it and no point in using it to cut other drugs because it would be inert, altogether negating its function as a cutting agent.

You’re right I was just being simplistic. Admittedly I read the article after commenting.

Please don't believe the bogus about throwing Fentanyl at police officers resulting in intoxication.

They will still overreact to being exposed to it, because just like before, it can't be absorbed through your skin. You have to intentionally take it. Police that pretend to react to it are almost certainly having panic attacks because of fear of it due to insanely low understanding of how it works.

Honestly this vaccine could just be a piece of wood. "Bite down on this and avoid injecting anything into your body and you can't be exposed to fentanyl".

Does this mean we won’t get anymore sympathy propaganda from the police?

Police and paramedics are intoxicated while inadvertently handling it during the course of their duties.

From my understanding that is not the case. " Skin exposure is NOT likely to lead to toxicity through absorption" from vdh.Virginia.gov just Google fentanyl exposure skin contact

John oliver did a piece on the subject actually

Nobody said anything about skin exposure. It’s a fine powder. Look, people will want this vaccine for a myriad of reasons. It’s down to personal choice.

Fentanyl can be snorted or ingested too though?

[removed]

[removed]

Not if there is blocks of wood in your nose and mouth. Blocks of wood are OP

Talk about a real game changer. I wonder if this would work on other families of drugs.

Except it could also helps addicts for example, or people who are exposed to it other ways (is spiking drinks with it a thing?)

I am sure quite a few people would want this.

Apparently you can. This makes the immune system neutralize the fentanyl, which is the definition of a vaccine.

For sure. But in the case of police coming into contact with it, it means next to nothing, since they weren't affected to begin with.

I work in the cath lab. I go through dozens of fentanyl vials a day.

And also pretty useless for hospitals.

Fentanyl is used as a medicine for a huge list of things but importantly anesthesia, because the body still responds to pain even when unconscious and blocking that can have a few benefits, but importantly it can remove reflexive movements and limit inflammation (no signals for injury, no immediate response by the body).

It's also used because its got a wider range of dosage than morphine, as in you can get effects with a smaller dose while weaker concentrations have both a lower minimum dose and higher maximum dose.

Having people who are unaffected by it could cause issues in hospitals.

OMG! The MAGAts are going to go crazy.

How do you propose we hold China and North Korea responsible here?

"i'M nOt pUtTiNg ThAt UnTeStEd sHiT iN mAh BoDiE!!"

/s

So if you received the vaccine would you be able to OD on fentanyl or not ?

Assuming for the sake of discussion that this is only given to addicts so they can break their addiction then I don't think that would be any more of a strain on hospitals than preexisting exceptions demanding special consideration, such as allergies and natural treatment resistance. It's already common for people to know when they can't be administered a given medication and to inform first responders and doctors. It's also already common for that information to sometimes not be provided and for a patient's treatment to fail. Unfortunate, yes. But also, we weigh these sorts of cost-benefit considerations all the time. It comes with the territory of living in a society. The possibility of that occasional misfortune doesn't seem to outweigh the benefit of helping millions and potentially ending the fentanyl crisis.

Doesn't this already exist? Vivitrol is an injection that people get to help stay sober that blocks opioid receptors so you can't get high. I mean this one works biologically in a different way, but it sounds like it's doing the same thing.

>instead of holding the actual drug manufacturers accountable

Ermm... the manufacturers of the Fentanyl causing all these deaths aren't exactly listed on the NYSE

I feel that one but I like my bday

It can be absorbed through skin. They make fentanyl patches. I'm not saying it absorbs great through the skin, or that there's any risk getting a small amount on you as a first responder, but they do in fact make fentanyl skin patches.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought most street fentanyl is coming from China.

What happens if you have taken the vaccine and need surgery?

They make nicotine patches too, but you're not satisfying your cigarette craving by rubbing a handful of loose tobacco on your arm.

The patches are a preparation specifically designed to be absorbed through the skin. Other forms do not work the same way.

First responders need to take precautions to protect themselves from myriad things, but the threat of "skin absorbed fentanyl" is incredibly low. The stories you hear are largely overblown attempts to score some copaganda points and perpetuate an ineffectual "War on Drugs." It's not about keeping officers safe, it's about maintaining funding.

I think that was the case a few years ago, but more recently it’s shifted to mainly from Mexico

>The patches are a preparation specifically designed to be absorbed through the skin. Other forms do not work the same way.

It's just normal fentanyl and I believe some patches heat up slightly because that helps absorbtion. The thing is, the patches stay on for DAYS because of how slow the absorbtion of fentanyl is through the skin. But they've been known to kill children.

upvoted

vac·cine

>/vakˈsēn,ˈvakˌsēn/

>noun

>1. a substance used to stimulate immunity to a particular infectious disease or pathogen, typically prepared from an inactivated or weakened form of the causative agent or from its constituents or products.

Fentanyl is not a disease or pathogen, and I don't this is made with inactive fentanyl.

Are you thinking perhaps of an antidote?

Maybe let’s crisper future humans to be highly resistant to addiction!

Unfortunately addiction has less to do with the substance and more to do with emotional pain. The opposite of addiction is human connection.

Kind of a vicious cycle right, emotional pain increases the desire to use, the substance itself causes structural changes…sober brings intense discomfort, use again…

Until you’re tired of it and you want to do something different. Process the pain, heal, surround yourself with uplifting people, learn coping skills, take up new hobbies. Unlearning bad habits and practicing good ones.

My guess is a different cocktail of anesthetics?

[removed]

Most is coming from cartels in Mexico, like someone else said.