- With blood-curdling health warnings on cigarette packets
and gruesome adverts describing the dangers, the number of smokers should
be on the wane.
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- Yet the figure remains stubbornly high with more and
more youngsters taking up the habit as adult smokers either quit or die.
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- Now a revolutionary smoking vaccine could finally succeed
where years of campaigns and health warnings have failed.
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- Even though the vaccine is not yet available, its makers
claim it could be used to immunise children against nicotine, preventing
them from getting addicted, while helping adults who have quit to stay
nicotine-free.
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- Dr Campbell Bunce, of makers Xenova, says: "You
can imagine it being used by parents of adolescents, who might want their
children to be protected against a drug-taking habit.
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- "That is something with ethical considerations that
we would have to consider."
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- The vaccine works by stopping nicotine entering the brain
where it would normally stimulate the reward centres and cause addiction
and cravings.
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- Working much like the 'flu vaccine, the new drug has
giant molecules, custom-made to chemically "stick" to the nicotine
and envelop it. Both then become a harmless inert blob, too big to get
into brain cells.
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- A spokesman from Xenova, which is based in Cambridge,
says the company has been developing the vaccine for two years.
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- She adds: "We will publish findings later this year
- the vaccines do work, it's not a pipedream.
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- "The fact they generate antibodies which cling to
the nicotine and stop it migrating to the brain was the first step. We
are now assessing doses, safety and other issues associated with all new
drugs."
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- The vaccine works in the same way with cocaine and users
who have tried the jab in trials say it reduced the sense of euphoria they
felt after taking the drug.
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- Already the vaccine has prompted a debate about who should
receive it, with some saying hardened smokers should be first in line while
others say children should be immunised before they develop habits in the
first place.
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- With the drugs reaching final trials prior to government
approval, some doctors believe long-term addicts are now "a lost cause"
as fewer than three per cent give up for good.
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- There is also the problem of giving the jab to addicts
- without any "buzz" relief for their pangs, it could be the
same as stopping with no substitute or help of any kind. The vaccine would
also render nicotine patches or gum useless.
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- It means the emphasis is now turning from cure to prevention,
although ethical questions - such as whether parents could force their
children to have the jabs - are yet to be tackled.
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- At one time, no one could imagine injecting nicotine-killing
agents into the already delicate immune system of children.
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- But it is increasingly accepted that if they were inoculated
not to respond to nicotine, then it would be impossible for them to develop
a chemical dependency.
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- Few carry on just for the taste and it's known that 80
per cent of children who reach 18 without starting, don't ever smoke.
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- John Roberts, Xenova's medical director in the US, says:
"Prevention offers a huge opportunity. If you can take away the pleasure
effect, children are likely to kick the experiment early and not get addicted."
He points to a British Medical Association report published last month
showing that smoking among 15 and 16 year olds had reached 25 per cent
for the first time, the same proportion as the adult population.
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- Dr Peter Cohen, of Georgetown University, Washington
DC, says: "Do we immunise people with a drug history or those at risk?
Do you inoculate only children or the whole of society?
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- "In the case of cocaine vaccines, which are also
in development, could governments force criminals or anti-social people
to be vaccinated against their will?
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- "These are the questions we will face as a society
when we have this control."
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- Consultant psychologist Gay Sutherland, of The National
Addiction Centre and London's Maudsley Hospital, says: "Assuming they
are safe and can mop up the nicotine, the first priority should be for
smokers who have successfully quit, because they are in danger of relapse.
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- "Then we can move on to other groups, whether smokers
or non-smokers."
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- The campaign group Action On Smoking and Heath (ASH)
does not envisage the mass inoculation of children for some years.
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- A spokesman says: "The key to reducing cancer deaths
begins with teenagers, but for all we know the drugs might prove more cost-
effective for addicts.
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- "We know that around 450 youngsters a day start
smoking and are stepping into the shoes of those dying off, maintaining
the levels we see now. Our main focus for now is to marginalise smoking
as unappealing."
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- Whatever the rights and wrongs of vaccinating children,
the fact that more are lighting up remains unchanged.
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- A spokesman from the Royal College of Physicians says:
"From the 50s to 1995 smoking was in constant decline, with most illnesses
in the older generation, then in 1996 it started going up.
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- "Since 1997 it has remained level and accounts for
117,400 deaths a year, 320 a day, or 13 every hour.
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- "The impact on our younger age groups is now worsening."
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- CHILD SMOKERS: THE FACTS * If they can get through their
schooldays without puffing, 80 per cent of youngsters will never start.
* Only one per cent of first-year secondary pupils have tried cigarettes.
* By the age of 15 or 16, 25 per cent are trying it and 10 per cent addicted.
Ninety per cent of heavy smokers start before they are 18. * There were
only 82 prosecutions of retailers selling fags to children in 2001. The
maximum fine of £2,500 is rarely imposed. * The government makes
approximately £100 million in taxes from illegal sales to children.
* Teenagers often suffer peer pressure to start, or their parents smoke,
or they think it's a part of growing up like using alcohol. * Milligram
for milligram, nicotine is just as addictive as heoin or cocaine (Royal
College of Physicians report, 2000)
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